SPRINGFIELD, Ohio —The woman behind an early Facebook post spreading a harmful and baseless claim about Haitian immigrants eating local pets that helped thrust a small Ohio city into the national spotlight says she had no firsthand knowledge of any such incident and is now filled with regret and fear as a result of the ensuing fallout.
“It just exploded into something I didn’t mean to happen,” Erika Lee, a Springfield resident, told NBC News on Friday.
Lee recently posted on Facebook about a neighbor’s cat that went missing, adding that the neighbor told Lee she thought the cat was the victim of an attack by her Haitian neighbors.
“At the same time though it must be wild to have a president candidate pick it up and run with it.”
Which is why I worry we may see more of this. Attention-seeking hateful people realizing they can get the ultimate retweets.
You’re right and I really wish you weren’t.
Me too.
