A Dallas man says he’s received death threats since being incorrectly identified as a suspect in the fatal shooting of police officers.
Mark Hughes had been attending a protest against recent acts of police brutality when snipers opened fire on officers there. The Dallas Police Department then tweeted this image:
Hughes was later cleared without charges, but the tweet was still up hours later.
“We received a phone call that my face was there on a suspect and I immediately flagged down a police officers,” he told CBS Dallas. He said the news came as a shock because he had been “talking to police, laughing and joking with police officers” earlier that day.
At least five police officers were killed and several others were injured during the protest ― one of many that erupted across the U.S. after police officers shot to death two African American men in separate incidents this week.
Alton Sterling, 37, had been selling CDs outside of a Baton Rouge, Louisiana, convenience store early Tuesday. Video shows an officer firing shots while he is laying on the ground. Philandro Castile was pulled over during a traffic stop in St Paul, Minnesota, on Wednesday. His girlfriend, whose young daughter was also in the car, broadcast the aftermath of the shooting on Facebook Live.
Hughes said he was taken in for questioning and released after 30 minutes.
“Y’all have my faces on national news, are y’all gonna come out and say that this young man had nothing to do with it?” he asked of police. “We’ve been getting death threats.”
“It was persecution on me, unrightly,” he added.
Hughes was photographed with a gun, but his friends told CBS Dallas that it wasn’t loaded.
“100 percent it’s not him,” his brother Cory told CBS Dallas. “My brother was marching with us.”
“It’s B.S.,” said a friend identified as David.
A City of Dallas spokeswoman later tweeted a clarification that Hughes was not a suspect or person of interest in the attack.
This story has been updated with a tweet from Emily Black.
