On Aug. 16, Joshua Witt told police that a black man in his 20s had approached him at a burger restaurant in the Denver suburb Sheridan, asked him if he was a "neo-Nazi" because of his side-shaved haircut, then stabbed him in the hand and ran away. On Thursday, Witt, 26, admitted that he'd made the story up after cutting himself with a knife he'd just bought, Sheridan police said Monday afternoon. The account of the fabricated attack that Witt posted to Facebook went viral in the wake of the Charlottesville white nationalist rally, getting international media attention. He has been arrested and charged with false reporting, with a maximum penalty of $2,650 and a year in jail.
Police were initially skeptical of Witt's story because nobody in the crowded parking lot had reported an assault, his hair wasn't shaved on the sides, and Witt was unable to identify the apparent transient police had picked up in the area, based on Witt's description. Then, surveillance video showed Witt buying a knife at an outdoors store nearby, and failed to show anybody approaching his car at the burger restaurant. "He was opening up the knife package in the car and he cut himself," Sheridan Police Chief Mark Campbell tells The Guardian. "I don't believe he showed any remorse. Our take is he kind of made this up and it kind of got out of control when it went on Facebook." You can learn more, including Witt's professed motive, in the CBS News Denver report below. Peter Weber
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