Man Arrested For Threatening FEMA Workers Reveals Misinformation-Driven Motive: ‘They’re Refusing to Aid Our People’

AP Photo/Makiya Seminera

A man arrested in North Carolina on charges that he was making threats to FEMA workers spoke to a local news station about his motive, which was evidently based on the rampant misinformation that was spread after Hurricane Helene.

William Jacob Parsons, who was released on $10,000 bail, spoke to FOX8 WGHP about his arrest and a social media posting he wrote that read:

We the people are sick and tired of the BS. We the people are seeking volunteers to join us and overtake the FEMA site in Lake Lure and send the products up the mountains this Saturday. We the people are done playing games. It’s time to show who we are and what we believe. They want to screw our citizens. Now, we return the favor.

When asked about why he would write such a post, he told FOX8: “I viewed it as if our people are sitting here on American soil, and they’re refusing to aid our people. So we were going to go up there and forcefully remove that fence.”

Upon arriving at Lake Lure, “I went up and saw that there was absolutely nothing there, so I stayed, and I volunteered all day.” There was no FEMA site in Lake Lure, and Parsons was arrested by police after they were alerted to his social media posts.

Parsons had been driven to go to Lake Lure by debunked conspiracy theories spread by former President Donald Trump and Elon Musk. One of those conspiracy theories stated falsely that FEMA funds were being redirected to illegal immigrants. Musk also posted on Twitter/X, which he owns, that FEMA was “actively blocking citizens who try to help.” None of it was true, but Trump’s most ardent supporters in the hard-hit region believed him.