Both sides in Edmonds mistaken identity case come together to repair damage

A local business man named Dean was misidentified on TikTok as a man who was accused of confronting a Black man he assumed was not going to pay for a drink at a restaurant in Edmonds. The problem is, Dean wasn’t the man in the video.

Since being linked to this incident in which he had no part in, Dean had his business attacked on Yelp with 17 pages of one-star reviews from people all across the country, and he says he has received death threats.

“I just about ready to go nuts, and then I started realizing this is obviously a mistaken identity, and I’m going to have to pursue it from that angle,” he told KIRO Radio’s Dori Monson Show.

“When you look at these videos sometimes, if you just get a quick glance at it, it’s easy for you to stick that picture in your mind and you start thinking, ‘well, gosh, maybe that is him,'” Dean added. “And that’s what happened.”

Karlos Dillard is the man who filmed the original video after being confronted by a white man at an Edmonds restaurant. He’s since been helping Dean repair the damage to his business caused by the misidentification.

“I spoke to Dean yesterday too. He’s an amazing human,” Dillard said. “… I have spoken to Yelp. Yelp actually this morning sent me a message saying that they’ve taken down all the negative reviews that came in.”

Dillard says he has also sent an email to Google, and he reached out to the creator who reposted the video naming Dean to post a correction.

But Dori asked, why repost something without verifying it in the first place?

“I went and I looked at the photo. Dean himself says that the guy looks just like him,” Dillard said. “… Except that Dean has a goatee that he’s had for 35 years.”

Dillard says the incident has been tough for him too.

“As as influencer, I get thousands of DMs a day. I actually have screenshots and recordings of emails and recordings of voice mails left for me of people telling me they’re going to hang me, they’re going to lynch me,” he said.

Listen to the full interview below, in which Dillard also explains what happened at the restaurant:

Listen to the Dori Monson Show weekday afternoons from noon – 3 p.m. on KIRO Radio, 97.3 FM. Subscribe to the podcast here.