Republican Rep. Nancy Mace has come under fire after she wrongly identified a college student as an ‘alleged school shooter’ during a campus-wide lockdown.
Students at the University of South Carolina were ordered to shelter in place Sunday while police investigated a ‘credible report’ of an active shooter near the library.
Hours later, university officials gave the all-clear after confirming it was a false alarm. There was no evidence of a shooter and no reports of any shots being fired.
But, during the lockdown, Mace – whose son attends the university – took to social media to share a photograph of a man walking around campus carrying a long, black object.
‘Here is the alleged school shooter at USC,’ she captioned the post on X, referring to the student as a ‘white male’ wearing ‘black shorts, grey tshirt, backpack’.
The GOP firebrand later deleted her post after it emerged the young man was actually an innocent USC student walking through campus carrying a black umbrella.
Despite taking down the post, the lawmaker has been slammed by both Democrats and Republicans calling on her to apologize to the student for her panic-inducing ‘false post’.
Political commentator Matt Walsh was among the conservatives mocking Mace over her false accusation.
‘Really grateful for Nancy Mace. She bravely alerted the public to the dangers of a guy carrying an umbrella,’ he wrote on X. ‘This is why we need common sense umbrella control.’
Former state and federal prosecutor Ron Filipkowski, who ditched the GOP for the Democratic party in 2021, also blasted the congresswoman for not apologizing to the student.
‘If you thought Nancy Mace was going to apologize after spending her day falsely accusing a kid with an umbrella of being a school shooter, you thought wrong,’ he tweeted.
Gun control activist Fred Guttenberg, whose 14-year-old daughter Jaime was killed in the Parkland high school shooting, branded Mace ‘the problem’.
‘Now would be an appropriate time to talk about how to appropriately punish you for this false post that could have gotten someone killed,’ Guttenberg wrote.
‘As the father of Jaime, killed in the Parkland shooting, everything about you and your messaging is the problem. Seek help as I firmly believe you are in need.’
Another X user suggested Mace should end her bid for South Carolina governor, warning that her false accusation could have had deadly consequences.
‘Nancy Mace tried to get this kid killed, by claiming he was carrying a rifle and broadcasting his photo on Twitter, when it was obviously an umbrella,’ the post read.
‘In a moment of crisis, she panicked. Hysterics have no place in leadership and no place in the governor’s office.’
But as online fury grew, Mace doubled down.
Instead of apologizing for her mistake, she tried to justify her actions by detailing how frightened she was and how she was ‘frantically calling’ her son during the lockdown.
‘As the mom of a student at USC, tonight was terrifying,’ she wrote in another post.
‘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.’
She thanked law enforcement for their response to the active shooter report and praised how they ‘immediately went to work to protect our kids’.
Mace claimed university security was ‘swift’, ‘professional’ and ‘fast’, and even applauded students for ‘sharing information to protect each other’ and ‘being vigilant’.
She further argued that ‘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,’ she said. ‘Many are confused after being told there was an active shooter. Some are even afraid to return.’
USC issued the alert about a possible active shooter, just days after false reports at Villanova University and the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga also led to panic and temporary lockdowns as the schools kicked off their fall semesters.
‘There have been false gunfire reports at universities across the country in recent days and tonight’s incident remains under investigation,’ USC said in a statement Sunday night.
There were two minor injuries related to the evacuation of the library building, university spokesperson Jeff Stensland added.
Approximately 38,000 students attend the school in the heart of the city that’s home to nearly 145,000 people.
In Pennsylvania on Thursday, someone called 911 reporting a shooter in a Villanova law school building with at least one wounded victim. Students received texts from the school’s alert system, but the school´s president later said it was a hoax.
That same day in Tennessee, the university locked down its campus, telling students: ‘Possible active shooter in the University Center or Library. Run. Hide. Fight. More info forthcoming.’
The lockdown was lifted after multiple law enforcement agencies responded. School officials said there was no evidence of any threat.