South Carolina Republican Representative Nancy Mace was harshly criticized for not issuing an apology after spreading the image of an "active shooter" on the campus of the University of South Carolina in Columbia who turned out to be holding an umbrella.
The university lifted a shelter-in-place order Sunday after police found no evidence to support reports of an active shooter near the campus library.
The false alarm came just days after similar incidents at Villanova University and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, which triggered panic and temporary lockdowns as students returned for the fall semester. Officials confirmed no shots were fired at the school and no injuries were reported.
Mace had earlier shared footage of a student on campus whom she claimed was the alleged shooter.
She also shared an image identifying them as a "white male" wearing "black shorts, grey tshirt, [and a] backpack."
@NancyMace/X
@NancyMace/X
She acknowledged in one post that the university said "there is no evidence of an active shooter" but did not acknowledge her past posts falsely identifying a student as the alleged shooter.
As one person noted, the image Mace posted was one she found on X and "was not released by law enforcement or an official authority, and could have resulted in him being killed."
But Mace made no mention of that nor did she acknowledge her error, only writing the following after university officials gave the all clear:
"Real, or a hoax, or a mistake, now would be an appropriate time to talk about hardened security at schools of all grades, colleges and universities. This was a terrifying experience for students on campus and their families. Many are confused after being told there was an active shooter. Some are even afraid to return."
You can see her post below.
People were quick to call her out, stressing the profoundly dangerous situation she'd put an innocent student in by amplifying unverified internet rumors.
Mace—who votes consistently against gun control measures—has a child who attends the University of South Carolina, and later said that "frantically calling my child to see if they were at the library or barricaded somewhere else on campus, making sure they and their roommates were safe, your heart just drops to the ground, for a minute you can’t breathe."
As of July 25, there have been 33 school shootings in the U.S. this year—19 on college campuses and 14 at K-12 schools—leaving 15 people dead and at least 41 others injured, according to a CNN analysis.
A study published last year in the American Psychological Association’s Journal of Threat Assessment and Management found that, in 40% of more than 1,000 shooter warnings at pre-K schools between 2018 and 2022, officials struggled to determine whether the threats were credible or simply pranks.
