’Crude, racist’ social media messages are fake, Tarrant County commissioner candidate says
Tarrant County commissioner candidate Andy Nguyen called out his opponent for “crude and racist statements” on Tuesday, but Alisa Simmons said the social media messages attributed to her are fake.
Nguyen, a Republican, and Simmons, a Democrat, are vying for outgoing commissioner Devon Allen’s Precinct 2 seat representing Arlington and Mansfield on the Tarrant County Commissioners Court. Early voting for the Nov. 8 election runs from Oct. 24 to Nov. 4.
In a press release emailed to the Star-Telegram, Nguyen shared an image of messages that appear to be from Simmons’ Facebook page when she ran against Tony Tinderholt for a state House seat in 2020. Simmons said she was spoofed and did not make the comments attributed to her. Nguyen told the Star-Telegram that his campaign received the messages last week but did not know the source.
The exchange shared by Nguyen shows Simmons saying that she “didn’t give a damn” about a CPS case and that the woman involved deserved what she got for exposing confidential records.
“She is lucky all her daughter got was sexually assaulted in foster care. She could turn up dead,” read the message attributed to Simmons. The message goes on to blame case supporters for ruining her campaign and then mentions Tinderholt. “Contact Tinderholt I bet his white ass won’t help her and her stupid ass daughter. Kids get taken every day.”
Simmons, who also serves as Arlington’s NAACP president, told the Star-Telegram that the NAACP got involved in the referenced CPS case after the family came to the organization for help. Simmons said the NAACP doesn’t handle domestic cases and that the organization pointed the family to other resources.
Simmons said the family initially understood, but that she started facing social media harassment from case advocates during her campaign for House District 94. The harassment led to involvement from the UT Arlington and Arlington police departments, as well as the national NAACP, Simmons said.
In a statement Simmons provided to the Star-Telegram late Tuesday evening, she said that Meta, the company that owns Facebook, took measures to remove spoofed messages put out about her and shut down the accounts of those who made the posts. Twitter also deleted posts, she wrote.
Simmons told the Star-Telegram she has never responded to messages on Facebook regarding the case. She called herself an advocate for the marginalized and said it would be nice if Nguyen had the full story, but she knows it’s politics.
“Politics in this case, exploiting a family who was enduring something that, you know, was traumatic to them, that’s unfortunate,” Simmons told the Star-Telegram on Tuesday morning. “And using it for political purposes without having the full story and being concerned about everybody’s safety is unfortunate. That’s the family’s safety, the little girl’s safety, my safety, because we have documented threats against me.”
In her Tuesday evening statement, Simmons said she was disappointed Nguyen would sent untrue information to media to undermine her Precinct 2 campaign.
“Andy and I have worked well together as community partners for more than a decade,” Simmons wrote. “I am disappointed in his lack of basic research.”
She continued: “A simple call to Arlington Police Department would have avoided him looking desperate.”
Nguyen’s press release stated that those in Precinct 2 “deserve integrity and dignity in their elected officials” and that “vile rhetoric” had “no place in civil discourse.”
“Elected officials and public servants should be willing to assist and be empathetic instead of making crude comments about the child and of the situation, as you have seen,” Nguyen told the Star-Telegram. “In order to bring people to solve the many problems that we have and we are facing in our communities, we need leaders that can collaborate, that are willing to listen, who are patient and look to solve problems, not creating more problems.”
When told Simmons’ side of the story, Nguyen said the message spoke for itself.
Simmons beat Arlington City Council member Ruby Faye Woolridge in the March primary for the Democratic slot. Nguyen, who lost his re-election bid to Allen in 2018, ran for the Republican slot unopposed.
This story was originally published September 20, 2022 at 4:55 PM.
