Woman Wrongly Identified as 'Torrance Karen' Facing Death Threats Over Racist Rants She Didn't Make
ROLLING HILLS ESTATES, Calif., June 17, 2020 (Newswire.com) - Initial social media reports misidentified long time South Bay resident Vickie Wible as the woman responsible for spewing hate speech in a series of racist viral videos directed at an Asian woman at Wilson Park in Torrance, CA.
Wible and her adult children are facing death threats via online social media postings, according to Wible’s lawyer, First Amendment attorney Jeff Lewis, of Jeff Lewis Law (www.jefflewislaw.com).
“This is a good woman who fears for her life and her family’s safety. They are living in hell right now and just want to be left alone,” said Lewis. Wible lives in the South Bay with her adult children.
Making matters worse is that personal information about Wible has been widely distributed on the internet, mostly on Twitter, and in one instance, Instagram. People know where Wible and her family live and their businesses continue to be targeted. In addition, hate-mongers are demanding that two of her adult children should be fired from their respective jobs.
Problems surfaced on June 10 when news and social media distributed three videos of an elderly woman spewing vile hate speech at an Asian woman. The videos soon went viral and inexplicably, Wible was identified as “Torrance Karen.”
At a news conference Friday, Torrance police identified the suspect as Lena Hernandez and acknowledged that Wible is in no way responsible for the racist rant. As a fifth-generation resident of the South Bay, Wible has strong ties within the community. Wible is proud of the diverse population in the South Bay and in her personal network of friends. The Wible family’s friends, neighbors, employers, and the community have been impacted by the spread of the misinformation falsely attributing Wible to this hate speech.
Wible retained Lewis to investigate potential defamation claims against outlets and persons who have falsely accused her of spewing the racist videos or of sharing private information about Wible for purposes of harassment. Lewis is demanding that anyone who distributed information falsely attributing Wible as appearing in the video to retract false statements.
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Jeff Lewis Law is a First Amendment attorney who regularly represents plaintiffs and defendants in defamation actions. For more information and to schedule an interview, contact Olivier Gibbons at ogibbons@courtstory.com. You can reach him at 212-300-5270.
Source: Jeff Lewis Law