The father of a Uvalde mass shooting victim posted a blistering video dismantling what he called Lauren Boebert’s “bulls*** apology” after she was filming throwing away a pamphlet featuring a photo of a 10-year-old girl killed in the attack.
Video circulated online last week showed an activist handing Ms Boebert a pamphlet and pin memorialising Maite Rodriguez inside the US Capitol - before she promptly dropped the items in a garbage can.
The Colorado Republican representative addressed the clip in her own video on Monday, alleging that the activist was “a man who came at me very aggressively just a few weeks prior during a press conference” and had been detained by Capitol Police after that encounter. She further explained she was not able to hear the man’s questions because she was wearing AirPods at the time.
Brett Cross, father of Uziyah “Uzi” Garcia who was murdered at the Uvalde shooting, reacted to Ms Boebert’s explanation in his own video posted to Twitter hours later.
He accused the GOP firebrand of “lying” and asserted that she conflated the activist with someone else who was kicked out of a press conference. He showed videos back-to-back that confirm the two men look nothing alike.
Mr Cross said the activist is named “Elijah” and that he’s “a big dude” who “towers over a lot of people.” The man who was kicked out of the press conference was called “Jake” and doesn’t match that description, as seen in the video.
“I did not want to receive anything that this man had to give me, nor did I know what he was handing me,” Rep Boebert said in her video.
But Mr Cross said: “You grabbed it from him. He’s holding it up and you take it from him.”
Ms Boebert defended herself in her video, saying that she was very “vocal” in the wake of the Uvalde tragedy. Mr Cross then showed a video of Ms Boebert walking near the Capitol building while people, including Mr Cross, were telling her, nearby “there are survivors of gun violence if you want to talk to them,” and she just walks by.
“You looked down at the pamphlet. You looked down at the pin. You knew what it was and you threw it away when you thought nobody was f***ing looking,” Mr Cross said. “You got caught and now you’re trying to spin a web of lies.”
The Independent previously spoke to Elijah Pelton who agreed with what Mr Cross said, that the congresswoman is confusing him for another activist who confronted her: Jake Burdett.
The Independent also previously reported that Mr Burdett was taken out of a press conference after questioning Ms Boebert about her divorce in May.
A second activist also spoke to The Independent who was with Mr Pelton last week described the interaction with Ms Boebert. “Just as we talked to other members, we told the congresswoman the meaning behind the shoes and the pin. We told her who Maite was. We told her that the green Converse were one of the only ways her family could recognize her. She did not say anything to us but did shake her head ‘no’ after I told her that we hope she takes action on gun violence prevention.”
The activist added: “As Boebert was walking away from us and around the corner, she quickly tossed the pin into the trash.”
