A mass stabbing last Friday that killed nine schoolchildren in northwestern China’s Shaanxi province has brought harm to yet another unlikely victim: an innocent man whose photo was mistakenly published as the suspect’s by careless media outlets, nonfiction platform Guyu Story reported Tuesday.

On Friday evening, a 28-year-old man stabbed 19 students on their way home from No. 3 Middle School in Mizhi County, killing seven girls and two boys. Local police immediately arrested the suspect and identified him as a former student of the school surnamed Zhao.

Xue Feng, a 19-year-old man who works at a hotel in Shenmu, a city 200 kilometers north of Mizhi, saw videos of the incident in a WeChat group soon after the event took place. Xue did not take the videos seriously and responded with his pet phrase “nothing wrong,” which triggered critical comments. Within two hours, Xue found that his WeChat profile photo — a selfie of him wearing a red T-shirt with a dragon tattoo on his left arm — was circulating on social media with captions labeling him the Mizhi suspect.

Soon, several local media outlets, including the provincial television news channel, had shared a black-and-white version of the photo with pixelization over his eyes on their official Weibo posts reporting the event. Some outlets also posted screenshots of Xue’s WeChat account, and one even quoted his WeChat nickname, “Be Tolerant or Be Cruel,” in its headline. Even state broadcaster Voice of China used the photo in its online reporting on Saturday.

That night, Xue received dozens of phone calls from friends and relatives asking how he had become a murder suspect. He reported the case to the police immediately. After taking his fingerprints and a blood test to confirm his identity, the police advised Xue to stay at home to avoid any risk to his personal safety.

“People were pointing at me when I went out,” Xue told Sixth Tone. He said that for the past few days, he has worn a mask when leaving his house. Since Saturday, he has taken leave from work for fear of being recognized — until Tuesday, when he quit his job altogether.

As of Wednesday, an image search of “Mizhi murder case” on Chinese search engine Baidu still brings up Xue’s photo in the first page of results. Xue posted a notice clarifying his identity on a content creator’s Weibo account on Tuesday, but the post has been shared just 2,100 times — less than half the shares of one of the posts proclaiming him the suspect.

But Xue believes that with his clarification, things have come under control. “The police have also promised to take action to get the posts deleted,” he said.

By Wednesday, several media outlets had deleted posts containing Xue’s photo, but he says none have reached out to apologize. Meanwhile, Xue has changed his WeChat account name and profile photo, and plans to stay home to wait out the sound and the fury.

Editor: Qian Jinghua.

(Header image: The photo of Xue Feng (left) some media outlets used in identifying him as the Mizhi stabbing suspect, from Weibo; Xue posing for a photo with his declaration of innocence (right) in Shenmu, Shaanxi province, May 1, 2018. From Weibo user @麻毛雄)