Family of Kansas City Chiefs fan smeared as racist files lawsuit against Deadspin

The family of a 9-year-old Kansas City Chiefs fan smeared as a racist has filed a defamation lawsuit against Deadspin for its dishonest reporting.

Holden Armenta was lambasted by writer Carron Phillips at the sports news outlet after wearing a Native American headdress to a game between the Chiefs and the Las Vegas Raiders in November.

"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," wrote Phillips at the time.

Immediately after the outlet published the article, critics pointed out that it had used a misleading photograph only showing one half of the child's face in order to make it appear as if he was wearing blackface.

"Yeah, just ruin this young fans life with your lying headline and misleading picture. This wasn’t black face, nor was it about race. It’s about support for the team," read one critical tweet.

Armenta's parents, Shannon and Raul, said that the report from Deadspin led to “the family to a barrage of hate, including death threats.”

The lawsuit claimed that the article misled readers by not including a full photograph of the boy with half of his face painted red and thereby “maliciously and wantonly" attacked "a nine-year-old boy and his parents for Phillips’ own race-drenched political agenda.”

The Armentas pointed out that their son's grandfather was on the board of the Chumash Tribe in Santa Ynez, California, and yet, Deadspin refused to retract the article or apologize.

“It intentionally painted a picture of the Armenta Family as anti-Black, anti-Native American bigots who proudly engaged in the worst kind of racist conduct motivated by their family’s hatred for Black and Native Americans," the lawsuit read.

The lawsuit is asking for unspecified damages.

In 2020, the Chiefs decided to ban headdresses from being worn at their stadium, but Armenta was attending an away game in Las Vegas when he wore the headdress. The Chiefs went on to defeat the Raiders on their way to winning a trip to the Super Bowl, which will be held in Las Vegas on Sunday.

Here's an interview of Holden Armenta:

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