Vance pushing rumors about Springfield after first poster walked back comments

Erika Lee, the woman behind the viral Facebook post that stoked rumors about Haitian immigrants eating cats and dogs in Springfield, Ohio , tried to walk back her comments.

The original post went live as a result of a twisted game of telephone. Lee's post included a claim about a missing cat that she said she heard about from a friend, who heard about the missing pet from someone else.

Lee has now deleted the Facebook post, saying it was wrong and that she misinterpreted a neighbor's story, according to text messages she sent to MSNBC reporters.

“I messed up royally,” Lee wrote. "[I] never meant to cause so much hate against a group of people."

Lee told NBC News she regretted spreading the misinformation.

“It just exploded into something I didn’t mean to happen,” 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.”

Since former President Donald Trump said during the presidential debate last week that Haitian immigrants were “eating the pets of the people that live there,” Springfield has received multiple threats against hospitals, schools, and the Springfield City Hall, according to the Guardian.

The violence prompted Springfield Mayor Rob Rue to respond to the politicians who have elevated the rumors.

“All these federal politicians that have negatively spun our city, they need to know they’re hurting our city, and it was their words that did it,” Rue told Springfield’s local news station, ABC6.

Springfield police have also said there is no evidence to support the claims, stating, “We wish to clarify that there have been no credible reports or specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community,” according to WDTN.

Days after Lee apologized and Rue denounced politicians’ rhetoric, Trump’s running mate, Sen. J.D. Vance (R-OH), refused to budge on the matter during an interview on CNN’s State of the Union, saying he has received firsthand reports from constituents supporting the rumors.

“Ten of them [reports] are verifiable and confirmable, and a couple of them I talk about because my constituents are telling me firsthand that they’re seeing these things,” Vance said.

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Despite numerous reports by city officials and police that no pets are being eaten, Vance pushed forward, saying it was necessary for him to create media attention about the disproven rumors.

“The American media totally ignored this stuff until Donald Trump and I started talking about cat memes," he said. "If I have to create stories so the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do.”