On February 4, 2017, the New York Daily News (
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"New Yorkers hold mock vigil at Bowling Green for 'massacre' victims as Kellyanne Conway ripped for bogus claim
BY
FRANK POSILLICO
DENIS SLATTERY
NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Updated: Saturday, February 4, 2017, 1:55 AM
New Yorkers can be a sentimental — and satirical — bunch.
That’s why it was no surprise that an impromptu vigil was held Friday honoring the Bowling Green massacre victims that never were.
“We’re commemorating the victims of Bowling Green,” said Chris Bauer as he stifled a smile. “It never happened so they were never commemorated.”
Bauer and a handful of others stood near the Lower Manhattan park, holding signs and shouting, “We all are Bowling Green, never remember never forget.”
Cindy Voorspuy, of Staten Island, stood near the entrance to the Bowling Green subway station carrying a sign that read, “Never remember always forget.”
The group decided to take to the streets to poke fun at presidential adviser Kellyanne Conway’s false claim that Iraqi refugees committed an atrocity that never happened called the “Bowling Green massacre.”
“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 they were the masterminds behind the Bowling Green massacre,” she said on MSNBC’s “Hardball with Chris Matthews” on Thursday.
Conway explained Friday on Twitter that she was referring to the two “Bowling Green terrorists” arrested in 2011 in Bowling Green, Kentucky for plotting to provide weapons and cash to al-Qaeda fighters overseas.
President Trump’s trusted adviser cited the fictitious attack in defense of her boss’ immigration ban barring people from several Muslim-majority nations from entering the country.
But the damage was already done.
A memorial website urging people to donate to the “Bowling Green Massacre Victims Fund” sprung up almost immediately.
A donate button on the page redirects to the ACLU website.
Conway was roundly mocked on social media as well.
Bowling Green, Ky., has long had a reputation as a welcoming place for refugees, and the city is home to the International Center of Kentucky, a refugee resettlement agency. In the past 10 years, more than 2,000 refugees resettled in Bowling Green from more than a dozen countries, including some Muslim-majority countries, said the agency’s executive director, Albert Mbanfu.
People in the small college town took to the streets Friday night to hold a fake vigil of their own."