Lauren Boebert blames her AirPods after she threw away photo of 10-year-old Uvalde victim

Republican Congresswoman Lauren Boebert has posted a video in which she apologises for throwing away a pamphet depicting a photo of a 10-year-old girl murdered during the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, along with a memorial pin that she was handed by a gun violence activist.

Ms Boebert’s video was obtained by the liberal Twitter profile PatriotTakes; it wasn’t immediately clear where it had been first posted. But in the video, Ms Boebert addressed the now semi-viral clip of her tossing away the pamphlet in question after receiving it moments earlier.

On the pamphlet were photos and a short message memorialising Maite Rodriguez, who died in Texas’s deadliest mass shooting last year. The pin was designed to look like a pair of green Converse sneakers, Rodriguez’s favourite.

The shooting sparked emotional and long-lasting conversations about how the Lone Star State treats firearms and gun violence.

In her video response, the congresswoman claimed that the activist who had handed her the photo and pin had actually been “a man who came at me very aggressively just a few weeks prior during a press conference,” and noting that the man had been detained by Capitol Police at the time. She also claimed she was unable to hear the activists’s questions because she was wearing AirPods at the time.

The Independent spoke with the activist who posted the original video and who claimed to have been the one who handed Ms Boebert the pin, Elijah Pelton, who contested Ms Boebert’s version of the story. According to Mr Pelton, he voluntarily left Ms Boebert’s press conference at their last encounter after staff began asking Capitol Police to remove him, apparently due to his “Ban Assault Weapons” shirt — and was never detained by officers.

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