Fort Lauderdale Mayor Dean Trantalis finally corrected the record after numerous media outlets quoted him prematurely calling the car accident at the Wilton Manors, Fla. Pride parade a terrorist attack, saying the event “terrorized me and all around me”:
My statement following yesterday's events in Wilton Manors is below.
I want to thank our first responders for their efforts as police and medical personnel immediately attended to the scene. pic.twitter.com/lahwAQPO3C— Mayor Dean J. Trantalis (@DeanTrantalis) June 20, 2021
OMFG. So much of the wrong reporting in this story is because of HIM and this is the BS he says now? He’s saying it was a terror attack because he felt personally terrorized by it?
Mayor of Fort Lauderdale, where truck ran into crowd at Pride parade: “This was a terrorist attack against the LGBTQ community. He came here to destroy people. This was clearly no accident.” https://t.co/95mxmE8Siy
— South Florida Sun Sentinel (@SunSentinel) June 20, 2021
And the “terrorist attack” narrative was born, and then repeated over and over again thanks to this hack:
. @thehill has tweeted the “terrorist” attack story 3x so far. pic.twitter.com/nqyF70IQpT
— Greg Pollowitz (@GPollowitz) June 20, 2021
Note that Trantalis doesn’t take any responsibility for the narrative HE created:
.@DeanTrantalis appears to not be taking any responsibility for giving on the record statements that turned out to be totally false. https://t.co/BSP22DzRL8
— Matt Karolian (@mkarolian) June 20, 2021
Nor does he apologize:
How about an apology to your constituents and some self-reflection about what it means to be a leader during a crisis? You failed miserably.
— Alfred Spellman (@AlfredSpellman) June 20, 2021
This really is unacceptable:
Unacceptable. https://t.co/Vjk2tSxaWL
— Stephen L. Miller (@redsteeze) June 20, 2021
He’s going to have to do better than this:
This mayor saw a car accident and then made a public statement — with no evidence — that it was a terrorist attack. That is unacceptable for a public official. https://t.co/ICTGOScCYw
— Zaid Jilani (@ZaidJilani) June 20, 2021
***