The Springfield, Ohio woman who first posted unsubstantiated allegations on social media that Haitian immigrants were stealing and eating local residents' pets says she deeply regrets it and never intended to harm the Haitian community.
“It just exploded into something I never intended.” Erica Lee He told NBC News Friday night.
Lee had recently posted on Facebook about a missing cat that neighbors believed had been slaughtered and eaten by one of the city's Haitian residents, but at the time had no direct knowledge of any such incidents involving Caribbean immigrants.
“My neighbor and his daughters [sic] A friend lost their cat…” she posted. According to NewsGuarda media watchdog group that monitors online misinformation.
“One day she came home from work, got out of her car and looked towards her Haitian neighbors and saw her cat hanging from a branch. They were cutting it up to eat, like a deer for slaughter,” Lee added.
The neighbor, Kimberly Newton, told NewsGuard that she actually heard the story from a friend, not from her daughter, and that a screenshot of the now-deleted post was shared on Facebook and spread by X on September 5th, according to the outlet.
With rumors spinning out of control after President Donald Trump repeated the claim during a debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, Lee, 35, said she never expected the post to spread “beyond Springfield,” much less draw national attention to the small city of about 60,000 people.
Trump's running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance of Ohio, also repeated the false allegations.
“I'm not a racist,” an emotional Lee told NBC News, adding that her daughter is half black and she herself is mixed race and a member of the LGBTQ community.
“That's how people seem to interpret it, but that was not my intention.”
Several other posts also contributed to the spread of false information, including: Man holding a dead goose — This turned out to be an incident that happened in Columbus, Ohio. There was also a video of a woman who allegedly tried to kill and eat a cat — This happened in Canton, Ohio, and has nothing to do with the Haitian community.
Police and city officials have repeatedly denied that such crimes have taken place in Springfield.
In Springfield, home to about 20,000 Haitian immigrants, schools and city hall were closed for a second consecutive day Friday after bomb threats received national media attention.
“I feel for the Haitian community,” Lee told NBC. “If I were in the shoes of the Haitian people, I would be scared too. I would be scared that someone was going to sue me because they think I'm hurting something they love. Again, that's not what I was trying to do.”
