News broke quickly in Toronto when an 11-year-old girl arrived at school in the morning with a terrible tale.
According to the young girl, a man attacked her twice and cut her hijab off her head. Just randomly appeared out of nowhere, attacked with scissors, waited a few minutes somewhere and attacked again. She described the man in great detail, identifying him as being an Asian man with a mustache. Her parents were called, and the media circus began to form outside the school.
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The young girl gave an interview right there at her school, which was unusual considering that children who are victims aren’t publicly identified in Canada. Then the girl’s younger brother, who was with her at the time of the alleged attack, went on camera to speak about harrowing attacks that supposedly occurred within roughly 10 minutes of each other.
The wildfire took off from there. Social media began to blow up, and social justice warriors everywhere spilled their lattes racing to tweet their raw outrage. I watched the footage taken from the school, and everyone and their mom was present to give tearful interviews to the press.
The school district superintendent was even on hand to condemn this terrible crime, and police spoke of the manhunt that was underway. Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau even took to Twitter to show support for the young girl and express outrage.
There was just one tiny detail that was about to be discovered.
After Toronto police conducted a full investigation into the matter, it was discovered that the attack never happened. It isn’t clear if the girl will face any consequences for making the story up, but I wouldn’t bank on that. According to activists, there are underlying issues that caused the girl to lie about a hate crime, and she should be supported during this trying time of making false reports. Some even blamed the current political and social climate for Muslim children not feeling safe or needing to spin yarns about boogeymen cutting off hijabs in broad daylight.
According to activists, there are underlying issues that caused the girl to lie about a hate crime, and she should be supported during this trying time of making false reports.
In efforts to save face, the social media world focused on global “Islamaphobia” rather than address the fact that they condemned a fake hate crime. Others were thankful that the attack hadn’t actually taken place and spoke of nothing else regarding the incident.
I’ll say it: This little girl needs to face some consequences for making up such serious allegations. Not only did she enlist her younger brother to lie for her, but their opportunist family jumped the gun by giving statements to the press.
Related: The Problem with Hijabs and Sports
Her parents also need to be held responsible and should be made to pay for resources that were dispatched on a wild-goose chase looking for a fake bad guy.
This is just one example of what happens when media and social media work themselves up into an uproar before any facts are known. So much for the talk-show tours and book deals. Tough break up there in Canada.
Angelina Newsom is a U.S. Army veteran and an OpsLens contributor. She served 10 years in the military, including a deployment to Afghanistan in support of Operation Enduring Freedom. She studies criminal justice and is still active within the military community. This OpsLens article is used by permission.
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