'It just exploded': Springfield woman claims she never meant to spark false rumors about Haitians
By: NBC News
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
Sept. 13, 2024, 10:48 PM UTCBy Alicia Victoria Lozano
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 incidentand 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.
Newsguard, a media watchdog that monitors for misinformation online, found that Lee had been among the first people to publish a post to social media about the rumor, screenshots of which circulated online. The neighbor, Kimberly Newton, said she heard about the attack from a third party, NewsGuard reported.
Newton told Newsguard that Lee's Facebook post misstated her story, and that the owner of the missing cat was "an acquaintance of a friend" rather than her daughter's friend. Newton could not be reached for comment.
Lee said she had no idea the post would become part of a rumor mill that would spiral into the national consciousness. She has since deleted the Facebook post.
Other posts have also contributed to the false allegations, including a photo of a man holding a dead goose that was taken in Columbus, Ohio, but was spread by some online as evidence of the claims about Springfield. Graphic video of a woman who allegedly killed and tried to eat a cat was also found not to have originated in Springfield but in Canton, Ohio, and does not have any connection to the Haitian community.
Local police and city officials have repeatedly said there is no evidence of such crimes in Springfield, but that hasn't stopped the lies from spreading across the country and igniting a national frenzy that landed on the presidential debate stage this week. Former President Donald Trump and his running mate Ohio Sen. JD Vance, who was born less than an hour away from Springfield, have repeated the baseless allegations.
Lee said she never imagined her post would become fodder for conspiracy theories and hate.
"I'm not a racist," she said through heavy emotion, adding that her daughter is half Black and she herself is mixed race and a member of the LGBTQ community. "Everybody seems to be turning it into that, and that was not my intent."
The anti-immigrant fervor in Springfield led to school and municipal building closures on Thursday and Friday after city officials received bomb threats.
Lee said she pulled her daughter out of school and is now worried about her safety with so much attention on her family. She is also concerned for the safety of the Haitian community, which she said she did not intend to villainize en masse.
"I feel for the Haitian community," she said. "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."
Immigrant advocacy groups have said these kinds of claims can be dangerous.
"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," Vanessa Cardenas, executive director of America's Voice, a nonprofit that advocates for immigration refor said in an email. "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."
Lee said that there are very real problems related to Springfield's population boom that caught the struggling city off guard. Springfield was not prepared to address the housing, health care and other service needs that came with the sudden increase of new residents over the last five years when Haitians arrived, many of them with protected status under federal law.
Still, she never imagined that her Facebook post would set off a national news cycle.
"I didn't think it would ever get past Springfield," she said.
Alicia Victoria Lozano
Alicia Victoria Lozano is a California-based reporter for NBC News focusing on climate change, wildfires and the changing politics of drug laws.
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I read that some ohio nazis or klan members were involved...
and then the alt-right picked it up and ran with it ...
fucking maga election insanity negatively affecting the lives of innocent people...
The report is that the B.S. rumor was spread by a neo-Nazi group called "Blood Tribe".
I would like this group of scum to meet the real ''Blood Tribe '' which is part of the Blackfoot Nation. The racist scum would b blood alright, all their blood.
Arvo..
The woman's single brain cell would have to be cactus now..
It died from stupidity...
The internet has no beginning and no end.
the only purpose facebook has for me is avoiding the greeting card aisle.
watching facebook wars break out used to be pretty entertaining though, until people drag you into them. thank heaven for hide posts but still remain friends, which is the fate of most of my friends. I'm only there for my kids.
I actually do use it to stay in touch with family and friends. We're geographically all over the place, and nobody has time for that many phone calls. A quick catch-up on Messenger works better for all of us.
after 25 years in sales, I hate talking on the phone, except with my kids. I've carried a goddam electronic leash for 35 years and haven't had a landline for 20 of that. I used to piss off all my golf pals by closing deals on the course. I've had the same cell number for 30 years and have never turned my phone off. some habits die hard.
I talk to my mom, sister, son, and a few others. Sometimes, I call when I know Mom won't be home so I can talk to Dad, because otherwise, he doesn't talk on the phone much.
My son moved out last year, and it's been amusing, watching his behavior change. He is apparently out of the phase where he either gives a grunt or single-syllable answer to any question I ask. Now, if he calls, I make sure I don't feel the need to pee before I answer, because this boy can talk.
It does but all the T-shirts are knockoffs.
My best friends and I only use the phone to text each other so when one of them calls, I know something is up. Like the last time Bill called me was because Frank broke his hip while skiing in Vermont.
I haven't had a landline in a long time either - why have two separate phone bills?
Same here. I am available 24/7.
... kids and old people. so, what's your number, you know how much I like sophomoric pranks...
I had to re-read what you were replying to. then I realized that I've had a cell phone longer than I've ever had a landline. that's some serious street cred to throw in the face of whoever they're calling the 2 most recent gens.
Morning...I like that, but thinking about it, it is true.. that's what I have done hardly buy cards at all now.
Alot of cards from friends have stopped over the years as well and messages are now sent via text or even better a phone call...
I use my mobile to keep in contact with rellies overseas, cousins scattered around the country and friends all who live over an hours drive away...
I even text my brother and SIL who back on to my place about 20 metres away every morning..but it's more a subtle health check to see I am ok..we have never said it but that was how it evolved...
I don't use Facebook now stopped years ago and only have it for their messenger service..
Yes technology has its uses but can also be dangerous in so many ways..
I know all my older relatives are doing well whenever I get additional friend requests on their hacked again facebook accounts. I wish all their accounts happy birthday now. I gave up telling my elderly mother not to respond to the "do you remember" phishing scams on facebook and clicking on any links her maga moron friends send her, since she got mad at me the last time I had to recover her laptop from ransomware. simply because I installed some security and deleted all the suspicious bullshit and her banking and credit card info and then I sold her car. she lives with my sister now, who's retired and has a masters in education and IT. so she's safe from herself now.
JHC lady, what the fuck were you thinking as a mixed-race person you of all people should know that this would result in attacks on the Haitian community.
Wake the fuck up.
Trump, JD, and the ass on NT that spread this type of shit should get their bigoted heads out of their ass and get some oxygen.
By 2025-26 50% of the 'asses' will claim they never voted for Trump ... MAGA is the denial party and once that glue has disintegrated they will all be older than Ross Perot's crusty shorts.
They are avoiding this article and would rather pontificate on the other Haitian articles, no surprise.
They avoid facts at all costs
Trying dont get it done.
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Thanks to the internet such ignorant falsehoods perpetrated by stupid people who ignore consequences can have deadly results. Sometimes I wonder if the internet is really a positive thing when it is also so capable of provoking evil things to happen. Even though the internet is very important for me, keeping me in touch with my family and the world at large, there are times I have wished, even many times posted on NT, "Please Scotty, beam me back to the early 1950s".
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3 B&W TV channels, no central AC, 900 SQ FT 3bed, 1bath house, Adleigh Stevenson...
No thanks
crap. add 3 kids and that was my mid 80's, before I got cable...
My mother's older sister lived in the same style house a few blocks away and had 9 kids,
eventually having to put the older boys in bunkbeds in the basement, they all went in the Navy, lol.
Okay, well the 1950s were a pretty good time in my life, but of course I'm not REALLY serious about being beamed back because now I've been married for almost 16 years to a beautiful woman who treats me like I was her Emperor, and in full retirement I'm living a very relaxed comfortable life.
You weren't happy with Adlai Stevenson? Why? Because he couldn't beat Eisenhower?
I didn't have a basement then, and if I would've had 9 kids I'd still be in prison....