9-year-old Kansas City Chiefs fan Holden Armenta went to the Super Bowl in Las Vegas, Nevada on Sunday wearing face paint and a native headdress.
A grass roots fundraising campaign raised $10,000 to get Holden Armenta to the Super Bowl after a racist Deadspin reporter falsely and maliciously smeared him as a racist.
WATCH:
Skin in the game live holden going to the Super Bowl https://t.co/XMINB40cTE
— Native Patriot (@LaNativePatriot) February 11, 2024
The parents of 9-year-old Kansas City Chiefs fan Holden Armenta smeared by Deadspin journalist Carron Phillips filed a lawsuit last week against the outlet for “maliciously and wantonly” attacking the boy in an explosive complaint.
Carron Phillips smeared an innocent child who attended Sunday’s Kansas City vs Las Vegas game by posting a deceptive photo of only one side of his face.
“It takes a lot to disrespect two groups of people at once. But on Sunday afternoon in Las Vegas, a Kansas City Chiefs fan found a way to hate black people and the native americans at the same time,” Phillips wrote accusing the child of ‘blackface.’
deceptive photo used by Carron Phillips
It turns out Holden Armenta is Native American.
Holden is of Native American descent and belongs to the Chumash tribe, with his grandfather serving on the Tribe board in Santa Ynez.
Carron Phillips deleted his tweets attacking Holden Armenta, however, the child’s family in December demanded a retraction and apology.
According to the letter obtained by NewsNation, the Armenta family hired Clare Locke LLP to pursue legal action against Deadspin, Carron Phillips, G/O Media and Great Hill Partners.
“These articles, posts on X and photos about Holden and his parents must be retracted immediately,” the December letter from Clare Locke read.
“It is not enough to quietly remove a tweet from X or disable the article from Deadspin’s website. You must publish your retractions and issue an apology to my clients with the same prominence and fanfare with which you defamed them,” the attorney wrote in December.
Deadspin refused to retract the defamatory article so the family sued the outlet.
The family filed a lawsuit on Tuesday and accused Deadspin of causing “enormous damage” to their family.
“Nine-year-old H.A. loves the Kansas City Chiefs—and he loves his family’s Chumash-Indian heritage,” the lawsuit stated.
“By selectively capturing from the CBS broadcast an image of H.A. showing only the one side of his face with black paint on it—an effort that took laser-focused precision to accomplish given how quickly the boy appeared on screen—Phillips and Deadspin deliberately omitted the half of H.A.’s face with red paint on it,” according to the complaint reviewed by The Gateway Pundit.
“Deadspin did not retract the Article, and it did not apologize. Rather, it published a series of further ‘updates’ that not only failed to correct the record, but instead established that Deadspin fully understood the Article’s highly damaging and defamatory nature—while maliciously refusing to back down. And Deadspin’s lawyers threatened the Armenta family with counter-legal action should Raul and Shannon attempt to hold Phillips and Deadspin accountable for their false and defamatory Article,” the complaint stated.
The lawsuit alleges Holden Armenta’s grades have dropped because he has suffered so much emotional damage from the barrage of hate he received.
“Deadspin’s lies have caused the Armenta Family enormous damage. They have exposed the family to a barrage of hate, including death threats (“I’m going to kill [H.A.] with a wood chipper”) and insults (calling H.A. a “p-ssy,” a “mother fucker,” and a “n-gg-r”). They have made Raul a pariah at work, forcing the family to consider moving out of state. And they have branded a nine year-old child with false allegations that will live forever online. H.A. has already suffered significantly—his test scores and grades have dropped in school, and he has shown emotional damage from the onslaught of negative attention,” the complaint said.
