False: A sheriff's deputy warned that KKK members out of Lexington, NC are planning attacks on Black women from now until the Inauguration

This warning is a recycled 2024 hoax.

The rumor: False “A sheriff's deputy warned that KKK members out of Lexington, NC are planning attacks on Black women from now until the Inauguration”

The facts: The message is a word-for-word copy of a chain text that spread in November 2024, when it cited a deputy in Gwinnett County, Georgia. The new version drops the county name but still says the attacks run until the Inauguration, and there is no presidential inauguration this cycle. In 2024, the Gwinnett County Sheriff's Office said it had no information on threats to any group, Rockdale County's sheriff said a check with state agencies found the message untrue, and a Lexington city spokesperson said police could not confirm it was real. PolitiFact rated it Pants on Fire, and it resurfaced again around Inauguration Day 2025. Fear of political violence is real, and a message telling Black women to stay in after dark two weeks before Election Day does damage on its own. Vote as planned, and report any specific threat to local police or the FBI at tips.fbi.gov.