For 17 hours, Dallas PD called an innocent man a suspect
UPDATE July 8, 2016 2:19 PT: The tweet, which stayed up for about 17 hours, has now been deleted.
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Original story:
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Fourteen hours after Dallas Police posted an image of a man they wrongly believed to be a suspect in Thursday night's deadly shooting, the tweet featuring his photo is still online.
The tweet, which reads "This is one of our suspects. Please help us find him!" has been retweeted 40,000 times and liked 18,000 times.
It features a smiling man named Mark Hughes holding a rifle. Hughes turned himself in and was later released by police.
Mashable asked a spokesperson for Dallas PD over the phone why the tweet was still online. "Because we're keeping it on there," came the reply.
Dallas police chief David Brown later told reporters in a press conference Friday that another man - Micah Johnson - was their main suspect. Johnson, who was killed by a robot carrying a bomb, told officers he was acting alone, Brown said.
An image and description of Hughes also features in a press conference filmed on Periscope and tweeted from the Dallas PD's Twitter account.
Twitter users expressed their disbelief that the tweet was still online, encouraged the police department to take it down and expressed concern for Hughes' welfare.
Some called for the department to issue a clarification tweet.
Hughes told reporters he was shocked to see his photo appear on social media. “I can’t believe it. I can’t believe it," he told KTVT.
"The crazy thing about it is that, I was down here, I couldn’t get down to my vehicle because of the roadblock. And in hindsight, 20/20, I could have easily been shot.”
His brother Cory Hughes, a protest organiser, told KTVT that Mark was getting death threats as a result of the misidentification.
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Tim Chester was Senior Editor, Real Time News in Los Angeles. Before that he was Deputy Editor of Mashable UK in London. Prior to joining Mashable, Tim was a Senior Web Editor at Penguin Random House, helping to relaunch the Rough Guides website and other travel brands. He was also a writer for Buzzfeed, GQ and The Sunday Times, covering everything from culture to tech and current affairs. Before that, he was Deputy Editor at NME.COM, overseeing content and development on the London-based music and entertainment site. Tim loves music and travel and has combined these two passions at festivals from Iceland to Malawi and beyond.
