Police are investigating claims that a Des Plaines, Ill., man made threats on Facebook to lynch Rep. Frederica Wilson (D-Fla.).
However, according to the Chicago Tribune, Tom Keevers said that he is all but being framed and that an anonymous “meme-maker” put words in his mouth, and now, as a result, he and his family are getting death threats of their own.
Screenshots of Keevers’ alleged Facebook post went viral over the weekend, with multiple users sharing the image and demanding justice. Since then the post has caught the attention of the Des Plaines police, who are currently investigating.
“Need ten good men to help carry out a lynching. Must have own horse and saddle. Rope will be provided,” the words above a picture of Wilson reads.
Wilson has been at the center of a very public and high-profile dispute with the White House ever since she called out President Donald Trump for the unprofessional and insensitive phone call he made to Myeshia Johnson, the widow of Army Sgt. La David Johnson, who was killed in an ambush in Niger.
Another alleged screenshot of a post on Keevers’ page declares, “This congresswomen [sic] is a disgusting pig. Someone should take their boot to her face.”
In an interview Monday, Keevers told the Chicago Tribune that he did not threaten to lynch Wilson, explaining that last week, he got into a “fast and furious” argument about Wilson with strangers on Facebook “that got out of control.”
From the Tribune:
Keevers said he deleted the thread because “there was some disgusting language” in it that he didn’t like. Somebody — he doesn’t know who, he said— later made a “meme” to dishonestly suggest he had called for Wilson’s lynching as part of a “thought-out attack,” he said.
Keevers then said that the alleged lynching threat was “not something that should be said,” before adding that it was “a joke, as I read it.”
“I don’t have 10 horses, either,” he said. “Don’t people get in arguments on Facebook all the time?”
If that ain’t a piece of whitesplainin’. Yes, Tom, people get into arguments all the time, but they manage not to threaten to lynch a black person.
The Tribune reports that later, Keevers claimed that he could not remember whether he threatened to lynch Wilson and that it was possible someone had taken some of his words “and made them into a meme.”
He then twisted things around again, insisting, “I did not use those words.”
What is really the truth, Tom?
Keevers also said that he was not being investigated, that the police were only checking in on him and his family after they received threats. Des Plaines Police Cmdr. Chris Mierzwa declined to say anything more other than that the post was being investigated.
“People threaten Donald Trump all the time and nothing happens,” Keevers said. “I don’t think a lot about what I write on Facebook.”
Read more at the Chicago Tribune.