NBC News' attack on 'right-wing influencers' over claims about Haitian cannibalism kneecapped by stunning admission

Murderous Haitian gangsters have massacred countless unarmed civilians; freed thousands of convicted felons from jail; torched police stations; engaged in systematic rape; threatened genocide; seized control of the country's key port; besieged the airport in Port-au-Prince; and forced the failed nation's prime minister to resign.

Some commentators online have even suggested that among the thugs regarded by some American leftists as revolutionaries are killers who have developed a taste for more than rape, torture, and murder.

NBC News apparently wanted to rehabilitate the gangsters' reputation this week or at the very least kill the notion that those otherwise keen to burn people alive and stack bodies in the streets like cordwood might be cannibals. After all, the threat of cannibal gangs might engender a desire among Americans to prevent migrants from Haiti from continuing to illegally enter the United States.

The trouble with the liberal network's effort is that it contained the seed of its own undoing.

NBC News published a report Wednesday claiming that South African billionaire Elon Musk and "right-wing pundits online are weaponizing unverified claims of cannibalism coming out of the conflict to advance a political agenda on immigration."

The thrust of the article is that conservative commentators have unfairly vilified those Haitian nationals who would steal into the U.S. — not by highlighting the crimes other illegal aliens from Haiti have committed on American soil and against citizens but by noting barbaric practices allegedly engaged in by some of their countrymen back home.

"Musk and conservative influencers have spread the message to millions, smearing Haitian migrants as cannibals," wrote NBC News tech reporter David Ingram.

A number of Haitian cannibalism claims online have been accompanied by a possibly real video from another recent rash of Haitian violence as well as a number of fake videos, including one taken from a Nigerian film set.

Ingram noted, "The cruelty of Haitian gang leaders is not in dispute, nor is the widespread killing in the country during a yearslong political crisis, but the false claims about widespread cannibalism go much further in trying to paint the whole Caribbean nation as barbarous."

Just four paragraphs into his article, however, Ingram admitted that the accusations of cannibalism were actually grounded in fact "on what experts said was a likely intimidation tactic from select gang members."

"In some videos, the most prominent examples being at least two years old, alleged members of violent gangs in Haiti appear to bite into human flesh," wrote Ingram. "Experts said these videos are likely part of propaganda campaigns designed to scare rivals and terrorize local Haitians rather than a reflection of common or normalized behavior. One former armed group went by the name 'Cannibal Army.'"

Ingram spoke to a moderator of the Haitian Subreddit who was similarly condemnatory of the cannibalism narrative, but even his outrage apparently centered on a recognition that the claims ultimately have merit.

"A whole population is getting blamed for what some psycho gang members are doing," said Chris Nestor, a Reddit moderator and a lawyer in Washington, D.C. "It is racist. It is dehumanizing."

Among the posts Ingram found vexing was one from podcast host Tim Pool, one from Malaysian commentator Ian Miles Cheong, and a handful from Musk.

Podcaster Tim Pool received a mention in the NBC News article for tweeting, "Look at Haiti[:] Murder, chaos, cannibalism."

Cheong wrote on March 6, "There are cannibal gangs in Haiti who abduct and eat people. We are not supposed to talk about that because of cultural relativism. The entire country has now entered a state of chaos after gangs attacked two prisons, setting many criminals free. 80% of Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince is now controlled by these gangs."

Cheong doubled down days later, writing, "Haiti has collapsed. The President is no longer in the country. The ports are officially closed. Cannibal gangs are besieging the national palace in Port-au-prince."

"And now they want to import this into America," added Cheong.

Elon Musk replied to the Malaysian commentator, writing, "End of days. This is bleaker than Mad Max."

On March 12, Ingram wrote to Cheong concerning a video allegedly depicting a Haitian gangster eating human flesh, noting, "This video is two years old at least."

Cheong responded, "I guess cannibalism in Haiti isn't so bad if a video of it happening was taken two years ago. Haiti has a long, colorful history of cannibalism. In 2004, a gang called the Cannibal Army also called the Artibonite Resistance Front, seized control of Gonaives. And then they took over Port-au-Prince. I’m sure the name was just for show."

Musk managed to get deep under Ingram's skin with repeated cannibal claims.

"When people wonder 'how bad can it really get?', well it can get cannibal-gang bad," he wrote on Monday.

The Tesla CEO commented on a video about America's open borders, "Cannibal gangs."

After NBC News ran Ingram's piece, Musk wrote, "If wanting to screen immigrants for potential homicidal tendencies and cannibalism makes me 'right wing', then I would gladly accept such a label! Failure to do so would put innocent Americans in mortal risk. Shame on NBC. Shame, shame, shame."

"Objecting to rolling out the red (in more ways than one) carpet for homicidal cannibals seems like a reasonable position to me," added Musk.

Cannibalism is just one of many terror tactics that has been employed by Haitian gangs.

Last year, Jon Lee Anderson of the New Yorker interviewed Jimmy "Barbeque" Chérizier, the mass murderer sanctioned by U.N. and various Western nations for human rights abuses, who recently united various disparate gangs, threatened genocide, and took over Port-au-Prince. In the July article, Anderson noted that the practice of "necklacing," whereby victims are "yoked with tires doused in gasoline and set alight," has become "widespread in Haiti, as a growing array of gangs have taken up the methods of the Chimères."

Anderson noted that "it is not uncommon to see the bodies of people murdered by gang members and left in public as a warning to rivals. Some are charred after being set on fire. Others show signs of having been beaten or shot or hacked with machetes."

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