Karoline Leavitt Links Dallas Shooting to CNN Coverage of ICE Tracking App: 'The Liberal Media Is Complicit'

White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt linked this week's deadly shooting at an Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) facility in Dallas to a CNN segment aired earlier this year about an app that allows users to track ICE agents.

"Three months ago, CNN irresponsibly gave free publicity to an app that recklessly shares the location of ICE Agents," Leavitt wrote in a post on X. "It has now been revealed the leftist lunatic shooter who opened fire on the Dallas ICE Facility was using one of these apps. The liberal media is complicit in the increased threats and violence against ICE."

Leavitt concluded the post by saying:

"We see it every day — they are quick to write a fake story portraying ICE in a negative light, often omitting the real facts of these cases, and they hardly ever write about the vicious criminals that ICE is arresting every day to make our country safer"

A CNN spokesperson responded to Leavitt's comments through a statement shared with The Latin Times:

"This is an app that is publicly available to any iPhone user who wants to download it. There is nothing illegal about reporting the existence of this or any other app, nor does such reporting constitute promotion or other endorsement of the app by CNN"

Her remarks follow details released by FBI Director Kash Patel on Thursday, claiming the gunman, identified as 29-year-old Joshua Jahn, searched for ICE tracking apps before opening fire from a rooftop on Wednesday. Three detainees were shot, one fatally, while no ICE officers were injured.

Even though Patel didn't mention any app by name, Leavitt's criticism seems to refer to ICEBlock, an app she slammed back in July. Leavitt specifically went after CNN's coverage of the app, condemning the network for reporting on it. "Surely, it sounds like this would be an incitement of further violence against our ICE officers," she said at the time, calling it "unacceptable that a major network would promote such an app."

ICE officials also denounced ICEBlock at the time with acting Director Todd Lyons saying the app "paints a target on federal law enforcement officers' backs," noting a steep increase in assaults on agents. The app's creator, Joshua Aaron, has defended it as an "early warning system" for immigrant communities, not a tool to interfere with officers.

The Department of Homeland Security has said the attack should "serve as a wake-up call to the far-left that their rhetoric has consequences," pointing to a surge in assaults on immigration officers. President Donald Trump echoed that view in a post on Truth Social, blaming "Radical Left Democrats constantly demonizing law enforcement."

The Dallas shooting remains under investigation as an act of targeted violence. Patel pledged that federal authorities "will lead these investigative efforts to see to it that those who target our law enforcement are pursued and brought to the fullest extent of justice."