The US woman, who is said to be the first person to post the baseless statement about Haitians eating pets in Ohio's Springfield, has claimed that she has no firsthand knowledge about any such incident. The rumour spread like wildfire and triggered controversy after Republican candidate Donald Trump went on to push it during his debate with Democrat and Vice President Kamala Harris.
Erika Lee, a resident of Springfield, told NBC News that she is now filled with regret and fear. "It just exploded into something I didn’t mean to happen," Lee told the media house.
A key point missing in a lot of post debate analysis is that Trump’s claim about immigrants eating pets almost perfectly syncs up to the piano in the Peanuts theme song. pic.twitter.com/6icWLe1sPN
— Noah Garfinkel (@NoahGarfinkel) September 11, 2024
Newsguard, a media watchdog that monitors for misinformation online, had found out that Lee was the early one to post the rumour. She did so after finding out about a neighbour's cat that went missing. Lee added that the neighbour had told her the cat was attacked by her Haitian neighbours. As for the neighbour Kimberly Newton, she just "heard about the attack from a third party".
Newton also told Newsguard that Lee misstated her story on Facebook and that the owner of the missing cat was "an acquaintance of a friend". She refused to answer the media's questions.
Also read: US debate: Kamala Harris rattles Trump as former President peddles conspiracy theories
The whole incident snowballed into a major controversy after Donald Trump repeated the claim on national television to millions of viewers. The Presidential candidate also pledged to conduct mass deportations of Haitian immigrants from the Ohio city of Springfield though the majority of them are in the United States legally.
Local police and city officials too repeatedly said there is no evidence of such crimes in Springfield and no such complaint has been received.
However, Lee added that she never imagined her post would become fodder for conspiracy theories and hate. "I’m not a racist," she said, 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," she added.
Trump's statement triggered an anti-immigrant fervour in Springfield with authorities receiving bomb threats.
Lee added that she is worried and concerned about the safety of the Haitian community. Adding that she did not intend to villainize en masse, Lee said: "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."
