The woman whose post ignited the baseless and harmful claim about immigrants eating pets in Springfield, Ohio, is coming forward to admit it was all based on a rumor she heard – and never had any firsthand knowledge of any such incident happening.
Here is the deal. NewsGuard revealed Erika Lee — a resident in the Clark County city — was among the first people to start the rumor online. Earlier this month, she posted in a private Facebook group called “Springfield Ohio Crime and Information,” claiming she heard from a neighbor that her daughter’s friend lost her cat and saw her pet was killed and eaten by her Haitian neighbors. She wrote in the since-deleted post:
“My neighbor informed me that her daughters friend had lost her cat … One day she came home from work, as soon as she stepped out of her car, looked towards a neighbors house, where Haitians live, & saw her cat hanging from a branch, like you’d do a deer for butchering, & they were carving it up to eat. I’ve been told they are doing this to dogs, they have been doing it at snyder park with the ducks & geese, as I was told that last bit by Rangers & police.”
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Yeah, she actually wrote that. The gossip spread like wildfire, fueled wild conspiracy theories and hate, and pushed Springfield into the national spotlight as Donald Trump repeated it during the debate against Kamala Harris this week. He declared:
“In Springfield they’re eating the dogs, the people that came in. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”
Moderator David Muir immediately chimed in to say the city manager “told us there had been no credible reports of specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community.” However, Donald continued to spew the lie. He said:
“I’ve seen people on television. People on television say my dog was taken and used for food.”
Don’t believe everything you see on TV — or read online. There is zero truth to this rumor. We should not have to say this, but it appears we do, given the circumstances. NewsGuard reported the neighbor Kimberly Newton later said she learned of the false attack from a third party. She even called out Erika, saying she misstated her story and the owner of the cat was “an acquaintance of a friend” — not her daughter’s friend. Meanwhile, local police and city officials repeatedly insisted there is zero evidence of these crimes happening in Springfield. Yet that has not stopped lies from continuing.
Now, Erika is speaking out to say she never witnessed firsthand any attack on someone’s pet in the area and never meant to cause to the Haitian community with her rumor! She told NBC News on Friday:
“It just exploded into something I didn’t mean to happen.”
Erika insisted she never expected the post to “get past Springfield,” let alone make it to the presidential debate stage. The frenzy her false accusation stirred in the area even led to school and municipal building closures on Thursday and Friday after officials received bomb threats. So scary! This is why you should think before you post, and don’t just share baseless allegations, especially when they are extremely harmful and risk the safety of the Haitian community. The social media user, who says she is mixed race and her daughter is half Black, then went on to say:
“I’m not a racist. Everybody seems to be turning it into that, and that was not my intent.”
Seriously? This woman started a baseless, racist rumor and wants to say she is not racist? Come on. As Vanessa Cárdenas, executive director of America’s Voice, further explained to the outlet:
“The Haitian-American community in Springfield, OH and around the country is feeling targeted and unsafe because dehumanizing, debunked and racist conspiracies are being advanced at the highest levels of American politics and are still being repeated. The false claim that Black immigrants are violently attacking American families by stealing and eating their pets is a powerful and old racist trope that puts a target on people’s backs, and it is turbo-charged in the era of MAGA when political violence has become commonplace and we have already witnessed violent incidents incited by such rhetoric.”
So yeah, what she posted was racist — whether she wants to recognize that or not. Erika is now concerned for the safety of the immigrants in Springfield, once again swearing she did not intend to villainize:
“I feel for the Haitian community. If I was in the Haitians’ position, I’d be terrified, too, worried that somebody’s going to come after me because they think I’m hurting something that they love and that, again, that’s not what I was trying to do.”
BS.
There is no way she didn’t know what she was doing when she posted the racist conspiracy theory online. She is most likely just sorry that she got caught — and not for the actual post. What are YOUR thoughts on her new comments, Perezcious readers? Sound OFF in the comments below.
To learn more about civil rights issues, check out https://www.splcenter.org/.
[Image via ABC News/YouTube]
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