The Family of the Chiefs Kid Who Got Smeared by Deadspin Has Lawyered Up and is Threatening to Sue
I don't know if there's a better age for enjoying Christmas than when you're 9 years old. At that age, you're right in the sweet spot between being young enough to still experience all the miracles, myths, and wonder of the season, while just getting old enough to grasp the majesty and grandeur of it all. And for parents, you find at that age your child is starting to become a more fully formed person. They're beginning to have their own likes and interests, which makes the gift-giving all the more joyous.
Take for instance, the Armenta family. We know they're Native American and love the Kansas City Chiefs. We also know they have a daughter and a son who got accused of a hate crime for painting his face and wearing a traditional headdress of his people at the Chiefs-Raiders game.
And we found out today their holiday shopping may include the gift for the 9-year-old who has everything: A once-popular sports website:
Source - The family of a 9-year-old Kansas City Chiefs fan whom Deadspin accused of being racist for wearing a Native American headdress and painting his face half black and half red is threatening to sue the publisher and reporter.
Holden Armenta’s parents, Shannon and Raul, have hired Clare Locke LLP to demand that the sports news site and senior writer Carron Phillips issue a retraction for his story headlined “The NFL needs to speak out against the Kansas City Chiefs fan in Black face, Native headdress.”
They also threatened further legal action against the reporter, Deadspin, publisher G/O Media and Great Hill Partners in a letter obtained by NewsNation.
“These articles, posts on X and photos about Holden and his parents must be retracted immediately,” the letter 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.”
You have to admire the sentiment in that last part. This is almost exactly what Michael Corleone says of the Senate committee, "I hope they have the decency to clear my name with the same publicity with which they have now besmirched it." Personally I would've used that exact wording, just for laughs, but the message is the same. That this is not a family nor is it a law firm that is interested in playing nice with the sorts of self-righteous twats who choose to signal their own virtue by attacking a kid.
Deadspin fucked around, and now they're finding out. Half measures aren't going to get them out of this pile of shit they chose to jump into up to their necks. They're not going to be able to issue some mealy-mouthed apology. No "We regret if anyone was offended…" lawyerspeak will do. No quietly removing the post will suffice. They're going to have to admit to the world they attacked a child and tried to ruin his family in the eyes of the world. Or suffer the consequences.
And in case The Coolest Kids on the Internet [tm] think this threat isn't serious or that their in-house lawyer can navigate their way through this short of the abject humiliation of admitting what they did, they better guess again. Clare Locke just happens to be the same firm that won a lawsuit against Fox News on behalf of Dominion Voting Machines. That little court proceeding cost Fox $787.5 million. I think it's a safe bet that Deadspin couldn't raise the sorts of funds the Armenta family will have coming to them if they sold all the office furniture, maxxed out on the Petty Cash and liquidated the money in the Sunshine Fund.
I have enough empathy for this family to hope it doesn't come to this. Not because I wouldn't like to see them make a lot of money since they've done literally nothing wrong but were still "besmirched." But I also would hate to see them owning something as disgraced and useless as Deadspin. Get the boy a bike or an Isaiah Pacheco jersey instead. No kid deserves to be associated with a scandalous outfit like that.
