Black Lives Matter of Minneapolis is apologizing for spreading photos of a man who committed suicide by hanging himself in a public park in St. Paul, Minnesota. BLM Minneapolis and BLM St. Paul had separately repeated unsubstantiated claims the man was the victim of a lynching. From BLM Minneapolis’ Facebook account:

We would like to apologize to the family of Micheal Bringle for sharing those photos & also retract our statements regarding what happened this morning. As more information came out & Mr.Bringle’s family came forward it became clear that this was an unfortunate incident caused by mental illness. We are sorry if our post offended anyone & hope that folks see we were simply echoing the questions and concerns that community members had.

Yesterday, City Pages reported how the claim that Bringle was the victim of a lynching got started:

Soon after Bringle was found, a Facebook post began circulating with three disturbing pictures of the scene including Bringle and nearby police officers. “They still killing us and we still killing each other!” wrote the poster, Davion Gatlin, adding the hashtag “#MakeGoViral.”

And it did go viral, with over 6,000 shares. People began claiming the victim’s hands were tied behind his back, further suggesting he had been lynched. When the coroner stated the death was a suicide and that the man’s hands had not been tied, Black Lives Matter of St. Paul disputed it and continued pushing the claim the man had been lynched:

Black Lives Matter St. Paul disagrees strongly with that assessment, claiming on its own Facebook page that the man found in Indian Mounds Park had been “lynched,” and reiterated the claim his hands were tied behind his back.

Police released a statement on Facebook after speaking to Bringle’s sister, Kelly Brown-Rozowski.

The woman in this photo is Kelly Brown-Rozowski. Her brother is the man who tragically took his own life in Indian Mounds Park this morning. His name was Micheal Bringle, and instead of mourning, his family members had to spend part of their day worrying about a photo posted on Facebook of him hanging from a tree and correcting misinformation about his death.

The statement goes on to say that Bringle “struggled with mental health.” Finally, here’s the photo police released of Kelly Brown-Rozowski:

So Bringle’s hands were not tied behind his back, he had mental health issues that led to his suicide and, oh yeah, he was white. Other than that, BLM did a great job with this story.