There is a scene in the 2008 film “Doubt,” set in a 1964 Catholic grade school, where a priest tells a story about a woman gossiping about a man she hardly knew — a situation Denton Loudermill Jr. understood when he was falsely accused in the 2024 shooting at the Kansas City Chiefs parade.
In the movie, the woman dreamed that night of a great hand pointing down at her. Seized with guilt, she went to confession.
“Is gossiping a sin?” she asked.
“Yes,” the priest said. “You’ve borne false witness against your neighbor. You played fast and loose with his reputation, and you should be heartily ashamed.”
Gossip haunted Loudermill in his last days as technologically supercharged rumor spread at light speed, leading to death threats and slander his family couldn’t escape.
People may not remember his name, but his family will never forget how he was falsely accused in a shooting that claimed one life and injured 22, including children.
He’d stood dazed in the chaos. People screamed. Fight-or-flight hormones surged. Parents scooped up little ones, not knowing if they were running toward or away from danger.
Unlike those who ran, Loudermill froze, said LaRonna Lassiter Saunders, part of the legal team representing his family.
“He saw a woman shot and bleeding out,” she said. “He was in shock. Everyone started running, but he asked himself, ‘Where should I run?’ He was waiting for his ride.”
Public torment for this intensely private man began there. Police cuffed him and sat him on a curb where people began photographing him, assuming he was one of the shooters.
Hard to blame the police in that chaos, Lassiter Saunders said. Still, Loudermill sat helpless as photos of him spread online like a lit fuse ready to detonate.
Terrorist/Illegal Immigrant
Someone posted the picture labeling him a “terrorist” and “illegal immigrant.” Those images went viral. Two Missouri officials used the photo in posts urging the president to “close the border.”
U.S. Chief Magistrate Judge Willie J. Epps Jr. on Oct. 7 allowed Loudermill’s defamation case against Missouri Secretary of State Denny Hoskins and state Sen. Rick Brattin to proceed.
Imagine the impact on Loudermill and his family. Death threats flooded in.
“I’m just a light-skinned Black dude,” Lassiter Saunders recalled him saying. “Why are they lying on me? I was born and raised in Olathe.”
The digital mob took its toll. His counselor diagnosed PTSD. His weight crashed. He often told Saunders he didn’t know if he’d survive.
“This happened often, especially at the beginning of our conversations,” she said. “The first part of my representation, I was like a counselor.”
He Didn’t Know if He Would Survive
Loudermill would see parade-shooting coverage on TV. His children saw threats and lies online. Once, at work, he noticed someone staring at him, [then] punching keys on their phone. When his photo appeared, it registered on their face.
Once the “illegal alien” and “terrorist” narrative took hold, it hardened into a truth-resistant wall of gossip and stupidity.
“This cost him his life,” Lassiter Saunders said. “The process has outlived him.”
His family found him dead on April 11.
There seems no remedy sufficient for what happened. To date, Saunders said, the officials who posted his photo have not apologized.
In “Doubt,” the gossiping woman did say she was sorry.
“Not so fast,” Father O’Rourke said.
He ordered her to go home, take a pillow, climb to her roof, and cut it open.
She returned.
“What was the result?” he asked.
“Feathers,” she said. “Feathers everywhere.”
“Now, go gather every feather,” he said.
“It can’t be done,” she said.
“And that,” he replied, “is gossip.”
And for many, the image of this innocent man as an immigrant terrorist still floats on the digital four winds, impervious to truth.