Compton dad scared for his life after being falsely accused in shooting of 2 L.A. County sheriff’s deputies

A Compton father of two says he fears for his life after he was wrongly accused of pulling the trigger in the ambush shooting of two sheriff’s deputies in Los Angeles on Saturday.

“Don’t feel safe at all, if I die y’all know what happen,” Darnell Hicks, 33, said in a Facebook message Monday night after a social media post with his name and driver’s license photo falsely accused him of being the gunman.

“I don’t know what’s going on, but whoever keeps framing me, making it seem like I shot two sheriffs when I was out dirt biking all Saturday, come on now,” he said in an Instagram video. “Please, clear my name.”

Hicks, a youth football coach with his own clothing line, also spoke to KTLA Monday with his lawyer Brian Dunn by his side.

“(They) just put my face out there real fast,” he told the station. "I got my own clothing line. I do a lot of business of my own. And it’s like people looking at me differently now.

Hicks said he didn’t feel safe going outside with his two daughters.

“He has no connection whatsoever,” Dunn said. “He simply has been thrown into this pit for nothing other than the color of his skin.”

The Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department issued a statement Monday trying to set the record straight.

“Currently, there is a social media post that is being circulated which identifies a male out of the Los Angeles area as the suspect responsible for the ambush of our 2 deputies yesterday,” the department said in a Twitter post.

“This is ERRONEOUS information and there are no named or wanted suspects at this time,” it said.

Dunn told KTLA that “no one has taken responsibility” for releasing Hicks' driver’s license photo and naming him as a suspect.

“Any person would suffer greatly when falsely accused of a crime, especially a crime as heinous as this,” Dunn said.

“I just want to send my prayers to the two deputies that were injured in this incident,” Hicks told KTLA.

“I want them to know I’m innocent," he said. "And for any other black men out there, just be aware – the description was a black male, so it could happen to anybody.”