A US man who claimed he had been stabbed by a black man for "looking like a neo-Nazi" has admitted he made up the story after accidentally cutting himself with a knife.
In a now-deleted Facebook post, Joshua Witt, from Sheridan, Colarado said: "Soooooooo apparently I look like a neo-Nazi and got stabbed for it."
"Luckily I put my hands up to stop it so he only stabbed my hand... please keep in mind there was no conversation between me and this dude I was literally just getting out of my car."
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Witt's "bloody Facebook post quickly went viral," says Gizmodo, with The Guardian adding "conservative newspapers cited the stabbing as an example of violent leftwing activists attacking white people".
Witt initially reported to the police that he had been attacked by a black man in his mid 20s, wearing a green shirt and blue pants, and claimed that the suspect ran off toward a bike path along a nearby river
But Sheridan police chief Mark Campbell said in an interview that officers were immediately suspicious of Witt’s story, as the attack supposedly happened in a very busy car park and police received no other reports of an assault.
"No one else called this in," he said. "No one heard him scream. No one saw any type of altercation. That was the first red flag."
Campbell added that though the Facebook post showed lots of blood, the wound on Witt's hand was actually quite minor.
The police chief also mentioned the fact that Witt's haircut at the time of the alleged attack did not resemble the fade haircut which has come to be associated with white supremacist groups.
The police's initial suspicions were confirmed when footage from CCTV cameras in the area where he alleged he had been attacked showed no-one running away from the scene as he had claimed.
Things got worse for the 26-year-old when the police found footage of Witt buying a knife at a nearby sporting goods shop just minutes before the supposed attack.
Witt has now admitted to police that he lied to officers over the attack, he has been arrested on false reporting charges and faces one year in jail if convicted.
Police added there was no evidence Witt had links to any neo-Nazi or white supremacist groups.
But Gizmodo quips that the moral of the story is clear: "Don’t play with knives, kids. And if you accidentally stab yourself, don’t blame your problems on invisible black people."
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