A Colorado man who claimed that someone had stabbed him because he looked like a “neo-Nazi” fabricated the story after he accidentally cut his hand with a knife, according to police. Joshua Witt, who has been arrested on false reporting charges, admitted to law enforcement in Sheridan, Colorado, that he lied to officers when he alleged that a black man had attacked him for having a haircut associated with white supremacists, police officials said Monday.

Witt’s original allegations went viral on social media this month, garnering press coverage across the globe, particularly from conservative newspapers that cited the stabbing as an example of violent leftwing activists attacking white people. Witt – a 26-year-old originally from San Diego, California – told officers on 16 August that a suspect came up to him as he was getting out of his car in the parking lot of a burger restaurant. Witt, according to police, reported that the man said, “Are you [one] of them neo-Nazi?” and then tried to stab him with a small knife. Witt said that he was cut while trying to block the knife with his hand. Witt described the attacker as a black man in his mid 20s, 5ft 10in, wearing a green shirt and blue pants, and claimed that the suspect ran off toward a bike path along a nearby river. Sheridan police chief Mark Campbell said in an interview Monday that officers were immediately suspicious of Witt’s story, since the attack allegedly happened in a very busy parking lot and police received no other reports of an assault.(theguardian)…[+]