ESCONDIDO, Calif. (KGTV) — An Escondido electrical contractor says he fears for his business after becoming the target of misdirected anger stemming from a viral TikTok video about the shooting of conservative activist Charlie Kirk.
Jason Lucero, owner of Evolution Electric & Solar, says his 15-year-old business has been flooded with threats and harassment due to a case of mistaken identity that began after Kirk's death.
"It's definitely scary, stressful," Lucero said.
Lucero says his nightmare began soon after Kirk's shooting death, when social media influencers began reacting to a TikTok post where a woman is seen smiling and later dancing while offering ‘thoughts and prayers’ following Kirk's death.
One influencer responded to the post, saying the woman was celebrating political violence.
The influencer claimed the woman was the wife of the owner of an Oceanside electrical company, which has a name similar to Lucero's company. While she connected the post to the Oceanside business, other influencers made a direct link to Lucero's company, which has no connection to the viral TikTok post.
"At its peak, how many calls were you getting?" I asked Lucero.
"About three or four a minute. It was non-stop," he said.
Lucero says in the past week, he's received a flood of angry calls, texts, and online messages, along with more than 9,000 Yelp and Google reviews. The messages range from dismay to insults to threats.
“Some threatened to torch the house and business. There were implications we may be killed. Scary and unfortunate," Lucero said, describing some of the threats.
"It's insane that something could blow up this quickly. Starts small and boom, it's just a huge problem," he said.
In recent days, Lucero and his fiancée have been on damage control, replying to messages, posting an explainer on their website and contacting Yelp and other sites to remove the reviews.
While Lucero feels they've made some progress, he worries some of the damage to his brand will be permanent.
"I'm not the suing type of individual, but they have ruined a business that I created and built up, you know, for over 15 years," he said.
A week later, Lucero says the harassment has slowed, but angry messages keep coming in.
"People are pissed off and unfortunately, I'm in the sights of all that anger," he said.
Lucero says he's now afraid to drive around in any vehicle with his company logo amid the fallout from the mistaken identity case.
ABC 10News reached out to the Oceanside company for comment and is waiting to hear back.
A company in Sacramento with a similar name has also been inundated with angry messages.
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