Protesters held fake vigils on Friday night to honor the victims of the “Bowling Green Massacre” that never actually happened.
They gathered outside the Bowling Green subway station in New York City, waving signs and chanting slogans including “Never remember, always forget” and “What do we want? Alternative facts. When do we want them? Right now.”
Other demonstrators assembled in the Kentucky town of Bowling Green with placards reading “Victims of BG Massacre” and “#NeverRemember.”
Protesters at both events were roundly mocking the since rolled-back claims of Kellyanne Conway, President Donald Trump’s trusted adviser who on Thursday cited the nonexistent 2011 attack by Iraqi refugees in an attempt justify the president’s controversial Muslim travel ban.
Conway told MSNBC’s “Hardball with Chris Matthews” that:
“I bet it’s brand-new information to people that President Obama had a six-month ban on the Iraqi refugee program after two Iraqis came here to this country, were radicalized and were the masterminds behind the Bowling Green massacre. Most people don’t know that because it didn’t get covered.”
Conway later called the flub an “honest mistake,” and claimed that she’d meant to say “Bowling Green terrorists.”
Chris Bauer, who attended the New York event, told the New York Daily News that he was “commemorating the victims of Bowling Green.”
“It never happened so they were never commemorated,” he said. “We all are Bowling Green, never remember never forget.”
Protesters are planning to hold a further fake vigil outside Trump Tower in New York on Saturday night, whilst Twitter users continue to poke fun at Conway over her phrasing: