Scott Shaw / The Plain Dealer / Landov

Charles Ramsey talks to members of the media as well-wishers congratulate him in Cleveland on Monday.

Chuck Norris has nothing on Chuck Ramsey.

The Cleveland dishwasher kicked in a door to rescue a woman held captive for a decade — and then charmed his way into America's heart with his colorful candor.

Twitter spawned a #chuckramsey hashtag, and musical remixes of his enthusiastic TV interviews were cropping up on YouTube. Actress Mia Farrow and comedian Patton Oswalt proclaimed themselves fans.

In a Tuesday interview with NBC station WKYC-TV, Ramsey shrugged off the "hero" label, but said he knew one thing about himself.

"I'm the definition of a man, bro," he said.

Ramsey lives on Seymour Avenue near the house where police say Amanda Berry, Gina DeJesus and Michelle Knight were held against their will by former bus driver Ariel Castro and his brothers Pedro and Onil.

Although he's a fan of McDonald's — he name-checked the fast-food giant several times in interviews, and they tweeted that they'll "be in touch" — Ramsey has worked in more upscale restaurants in recent years.

"He was fantastic, always upbeat, always willing to help," said Peter D'Amato, general manager of Moxie in Beachwood, Ohio. "He was a fun guy who played basketball with the crew on his days off."

The "jack-of-all-trades" left Moxie's in 2007 to work for a restaurant and bakery co-owned by William Davis, who recalled how he helped him move house and was always lending a hand to the charity thrift shop next door.

He also remembered the unfiltered story-telling that Ramsey put on display after the rescue. "Actually, we were amazed at how censored he was in the TV interview," Davis laughed.

When his eatery closed, Ramsey wound up at Hodge's, where the owner said he could handle any kitchen crisis.

"He's calm in the face of crazy and hectic things going on," Chris Hodgson told the Cleveland Plain Dealer.

Crazy and hectic would certainly describe the events of Monday night on Seymour Avenue, when Berry made her break for freedom, interrupting Ramsey's meal of McDonald's takeout.

"This girl is kicking the door and screaming," he told WKYC-TV.

"So I go over there ... and I say, 'Can I help? What’s going on?' And she says, 'I’ve been kidnapped, and I’ve been in this house a long time. I want to leave right now.'"

Ramsey said he helped her kick in the door so she could climb out with her child, and then he called 911.

"Hey bro, check this out," he told the dispatcher, referring to Berry as "this broad" and dropping a bunch of profanities along the way.

Slideshow: Missing women found alive in Cleveland

Tony Dejak / AP

A daring escape and a dramatic 911 call led to the rescue of three women who allegedly had been held captive for years inside a home in Cleveland, Ohio.

Launch slideshow

As he tried to explain the bizarre situation to the uncomprehending operator, Ramsey seemed to run out of patience. And when the dispatcher suggested he had provided the incorrect address, Ramsey bristled.

"I'm smarter than that, bro!" he retorted.

After the police arrived and whisked away Berry and the other two women, Ramsey told his story over and over to the media, the blow-by-blow paired with some deductive reasoning and a primer on race relations.

"Bro, I knew something was wrong when a little pretty white girl ran into a black man's arms," he told a reporter at the scene.

"Something's wrong here. Dead giveaway. Dead giveaway. Dead giveaway. Either she's homeless or she's got problems. That's the only reason she run to a black man."

The next day, Ramsey reflected that he didn't have much choice but to get involved, because that's how he was raised.

"My father would have whupped the hell out of me if I cowered out," he said.

He only wishes he had the opportunity to act sooner, making somewhat ominous references to a coroner and white sheets.

"We would have handled that, bro," he told WKYC.

With the clock still ticking on his 15 minutes, Ramsey said he was coping well with his newfound fame, rankled only by one piece of unfinished business with his neighbor, Ariel Castro.

"I wanna get my hands on him," he said. "And then I’ll be all right."

Related:

Five missing-child cases with happy endings

This story was originally published on Tue May 7, 2013 4:10 PM EDT

Two hours after the Boston Marathon bombing, suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev tweeted, “Ain't no love in the heart of the city, stay safe people” – and a day later said he was “stress-free.”

The Twitter account (handle: @J_tsar), which borrowed heavily from song lyrics by the likes of Eminem and Jay-Z,  has not been active since Wednesday, when Tsarnaev retweeted a post by a Muslim scholar: “Attitude can take away your beauty no matter how good looking you are or it could enhance your beauty, making you adorable.”

Tsarnaev’s Twitter feed is full of typical teenage banter, pop culture quotes and jokes, but the tweets he made in the days before and after the bombing are now being parsed for extra meaning.

His “stay safe” tweet -- which drew from the Jay-Z song title "Heart of the City (Ain't No Love)" -- came at 5:34 p.m. on Monday. A few hours later, he followed up with: “There are people that know the truth but stay silent & there are people that speak the truth but we don't hear them cuz they're the minority.”

On Monday and Tuesday he replied to tweets from other accounts that were protected, so it was unclear what was being discussed.

But Tsarnaev did make one direct reference to the marathon tragedy, replying to a tweet of a widely-circulated photo that showed a bombing victim on the ground and falsely said the man crouched over her was her boyfriend.

“Fake story” he wrote, without further comment.

In another Tuesday tweet, he used the lyrics of the Eminem rap "Forgot About Dre" to complain: “Nowadays everybody wanna talk like they got somethin to say but nothin comes out when they move their lips; just a bunch of gibberish”

A few hours later came this declaration: “I'm a stress free kind of guy.”

The final post came on Wednesday, when he retweeted Mufti Ismail Menk, who describes himself a Muslim scholar who studied in Saudi Arabia but who appeared to be based in Zimbabwe.

Related:

• Suspects to carjack victim: We are the bombers
• Who are the brothers accused of the Boston Marathon bombing?
• An empty metropolis: Photos show deserted streets of Boston  
• What we know: Timeline of terror hunt
• ‘Dedicated officer’ gunned down by Boston Marathon suspects at MIT
• Slideshow: Bombings at Boston Marathon
• Boston bombing spurs Senate debate on tighter immigration screening
• Photos from Bostonians locked down amid terror hunt 
• Tweeting police chatter creates confusion over Boston suspect

Courtesy of the Tripathi family

Sunil Tripathi and his mother, Judy Tripathi.

The family of missing Brown University student Sunil Tripathi, whose name was repeatedly blasted across social media as a suspect in the Boston Marathon bombing, said it has been emotionally staggered by the erroneous reports.

His sister, Sangeeta Tripathi, said the family was forced to temporarily freeze its "Help Us Find Sunil Tripathi" Facebook page after that site — beginning Thursday evening — was peppered with a flurry of harsh and untrue posts about the student, who has been missing without a trace since March 16. The family is eagerly awaiting official word from law enforcement clearing Tripathi.

NBC News, via correspondent Pete Williams, reported on Twitter shortly after 2 a.m. Friday: "Speculation that one of the bombing suspects is a missing student is not correct," citing law enforcement sources. 

"It seems this is just the ugly underbelly of viral social media," Sangeeta Tripathi said. "But a lot of stir can be created through just a complete accusatory and unsubstantiated effort." 

"It’s had a huge cost on our family. We are all very depleted right now, just baseline over the past 34 days, and this has been very, very difficult," she added. "Without Sunil in our life, it's been very hard to have that publicity. 

"We are absolutely convinced, with no question at all, it’s not Sunil. We are eagerly awaiting formal public news to calm the pain on my family. We have not received a public apology at all. The FBI is incredibly busy as you can imagine in the investigation. The second law enforcement releases complete information on the suspects, it’s going up on our Facebook page." 

Twitter was ablaze overnight with tweets from users who said they'd heard Sunil Tripathi's name mentioned on Boston police radio frequencies in connection to the bombing investigation and during the massive manhunt that quickly unfolded Thursday night. The Tripathi family said it has no information corroborating that Boston police mentioned Tripathi's name. 

'Intense and ugly comments'
On Twitter, ‏‪@YourAnonNews tweeted overnight: "Police on scanner identify the names of ‪#BostonMarathon suspects in gunfight, Suspect 1: Mike Mulugeta. Suspect 2: Sunil Tripathi." That was retweeted more than 3,000 times. On the twitter account for "Kevin Michael TV," which lists him as "behind the camera at WFSB news Channel 3 Eyewitness News" in Hartford, Conn., a similar tweet came at roughly the same time: "BPD scanner has identified the names : Suspect 1: Mike Mulugeta Suspect 2: Sunil Tripathi."

As with Tripathi, no one named Mulugeta has been named as a suspect by the police. 

Meanwhile, the social news and entertainment website Reddit became overnight, Sangeeta Tripathi said, "one of the more ugly and disgusting places that had a lot of traffic ... There were very intense and ugly comments throughout the last 12 hours. A moderator posted an acknowledgement that without formal evidence, accusations should stop."

On Friday afternoon, the Tripathi family received an email from Erik Martin, the general manager of Reddit, “to apologize personally and on behalf of all our employees for … some of the people on our site's role in the spreading of this false idea about Sunny.” The Tripathi family immediately forwarded that email to NBC News.

“It's an extreme situation and we are deeply sorry that your family got caught up in it,” Martin wrote in the email. “I can't imagine what it must be like for your family to deal with this on top of what you must already be going through.”

The Tripathi family's Facebook page, set up to help locate Sunil and, until Thursday, filled with messages of hope and pictures of the student, began being hit with posts Thursday evening "from individuals who for whatever reason were making the association between what happened (at the Boston Marathon) and him, Sangeeta Tripathi said. 

The Tripathi siblings — there are three, with Sangeeta being the oldest and Sunil the youngest — grew up outside Philadelphia, Sangeeta said. The family has been huddled in Providence, R.I., home of Brown University, since Sunil disappeared last month. His nickname is "Sunny." 

Asked if the viral nature of the misinformation was racially fueled, she responded: "I’m not going to comment on that."

The spread of false rumors online is nothing new, but the combination of confusion and breaking news can create a particularly toxic situation.

In the immediate aftermath of the Newtown, Conn., school shootings, when local officials incorrectly identified the shooter as Ryan Lanza, thousands of Twitter and Facebook users swarmed to repeat the accusations. Meanwhile, after the theater shooting in Aurora, Colo., Facebook users who shared the suspect's name, James Holmes, found dozens of false accusations left on the pages.

Related links:

• Suspects to carjack victim: We are the bombers
• Who are the brothers accused of the Boston Marathon bombing?
• An empty metropolis: Photos show deserted streets of Boston  
• What we know: Timeline of terror hunt
• ‘Dedicated officer’ gunned down by Boston Marathon suspects at MIT
• Slideshow: Bombings at Boston Marathon
• Boston bombing spurs Senate debate on tighter immigration screening
• Photos from Bostonians locked down amid terror hunt 
• Tweeting police chatter creates confusion over Boston suspect

David Wallace / AP

Defendant Jodi Arias, right, talks to her attorney, Jennifer Wilmott during her trial at Maricopa County Superior Court in Phoenix on Thursday, April 11, 2013.

A friend of the Arizona woman at the center of one of the country's most high-profile murder trials says she has been tweeting for Jodi Arias since February.

Though the accused murderer has no access to a computer or cell phone in her Phoenix jail cell, close friend Donavan Bering told NBC News that she has actually been tweeting on Arias' behalf based on telephone conversations they have nearly every day.

The account has been used to mock both the prosecution and pundits who have weighed in on the case that has dominated the national media.

"He who tries to establish his point by much yelling shows that his reasoning is weak," @JodiAnnArias tweeted on April 7, a likely nod to prosecuting attorney Juan Martinez.

Another tweet from the account read, "Hmm... Anger Management problems anyone?"

Martinez, who grilled Arias when she took the stand last month, has become nationally known for his fiery style in the courtroom. Arias has admitted to the killing of boyfriend Travis Alexander in June 2008, but maintains the killing was in self-defense.

Bering met Arias while in jail herself, NBC News has confirmed. She was first identified by local Phoenix Fox station KSAZ. The woman has been a common sight in Maricopa County Superior Court, often sitting next to Arias' mother. 

Bering has been an ardent supporter of Arias throughout the trial, so much so that her life has been threatened, she says.

"I just want people to know I won't stop supporting Jodi and her family," Bering told NBC News' Dateline. "I have the right to talk for her and my life shouldn't be threatened."

The case has been the a staple topic on HLN, which has received much of the scorn of Arias on Twitter.

"HLN is an acronym for Haters Love Negativity," the account tweeted last month.

The Arias twitter handle also responded to HLN commentator Nancy Grace, who tweeted a photo suggesting Arias was giving the middle finger during her trial. "Actually, Nancy, that finger was for you. Have a nice day," the Arias account tweeted.

Maricopa County sheriff's spokesman Christopher Hegstrom said authorities are not happy that Arias may be telegraphing tweets from prison, but there is nothing they can do to stop it.

"We don't like it, but at this point she has not been convicted of anything and has the right to make phone calls."

Most days, Arias has about 16 hours where she is free to be out of cell and could make collect calls. Although the phone calls made from the Estrella jail where she is being held are recorded, discussing possible tweets would not likely have raised any red flags, according to Hegstrom.

Arias’ attorneys didn’t return calls for comment.

Along with taking swipes at those who have been mean to Arias throughout the trial, the Twitter account is also promoting her art.

"eBay has banned all listings of my artwork. The silver lining in making my art more difficult to obtain is that it keeps increasing in value," it posted on Feb. 22.

Mary Altaffer / AP

New York City Fire Department Commissioner Salvatore J. Cassano, seen here in 2010, had no comment Tuesday on offensive tweets by his son, Joseph, an emergency medical technician.

The son of New York City's fire commissioner quit his job as a city emergency medical technician Monday after a report that he made offensive posts about blacks, Jews and women on Twitter.

Joseph Cassano resigned only a few hours after issuing an apology for the tweets. His father, Commissioner Salvatore Cassano, said he was “extremely disappointed” by his son’s online comments and that they did not reflect his values.

The New York Post reported that the younger Cassano’s now-disabled Twitter account included posts such as "I like jews about as much as hitler" and "Getting sick of picking up all these obama lovers and taking them to the hospital because their medicare pays for an ambulance and not a cab."

In other tweets, he used a derogatory slang term for black people, threatened to leave the U.S. if President Obama was re-elected and made a snide crack about Martin Luther King Jr., the newspaper said. He also reportedly wrote that every girl should be forced to get a "boob job" when she turns 18.

Cassano, 23, also complained about his job as a city EMT, and alluded to a plan to follow in his father's footsteps and become a firefighter, the Post reported. 

In a statement issued through the FDNY, the son did not acknowledge specific tweets but said he took "full responsibility my comments."

"From the bottom of my heart, I’m truly sorry and I apologize for my offensive remarks.  My intention was never to hurt anyone, or any group, and these tasteless comments do not reflect the person my parents raised me to be," he wrote.

The elder Cassano said the situation was “very painful” to him as a parent but backed his son’s decision to step down from a job he has held since December and which could have given him an edge in becoming a firefighter.

“I love him very much and, with the support and love of our entire family, we will get through this together,” the commissioner said.

Cassano, who took over the top Fire Department job in January of 2010, also said he has worked hard for years “to make the FDNY more diverse and inclusive” and would not tolerate statements that damage the department’s reputation.

The Fire Department has been embroiled in a federal lawsuit brought by the Justice Department in 2007 over its racial makeup, which was 89 percent white.

In 2010, a judge halted hiring and ordered the city to create a new entrance exam; the following year, he appointed a monitor to oversee recruitment and hiring. The city has appealed, but a record number of minorities took the latest test last spring, and 40 percent of those in line to get the coveted jobs are black or Hispanic.

Before the resignation, a lawyer for the Vulcan Society — a fraternal organization of black firefighters, which joined the feds' discrimination suit against the department — called the younger Cassano's tweets disgraceful.

"I suppose one shouldn't visit the sins of the son upon the parent, but as John lives at home with his father the FDNY commissioner you can't help wondering about the influence of that home on his disgracefully racist views," the lawyer, Richard Levy, said in an email to NBC News.

Ron Meier, New York regional director for the Anti-Defamation League, said he was "encouraged" by the younger Cassano's apology.

"The sentiment Mr. Cassano communicated in those posts threatens to damage and undermine public trust in FDNY. We urge Mr. Cassano to take meaningful steps that reflect the regret he has expressed," Meier said in a statement.

The head of the union that represents emergency medical technicians said he was hoping the report was "not true."

"The union does not condone this type of behavior," said Israel Miranda, president of Local 2507 of District Council 37.

From inspiring tales of love to the tragedy of the Aurora, Colo., theater shooting and intrigue surrounding the presidential election, 2012 offered stories that quickly became the talk of social networks. Here's a look back at some of the most-shared stories of the year on NBCNews.com and TODAY.com.

Photo of Kara Alongi from her Twitter feed

Police say the New Jersey teen who tweeted that someone was in her home, asked her followers to call 911 and then disappeared likely left her house voluntarily.

Kara Alongi gained thousands of followers after asking people on Twitter to call 911 on Sunday because an intruder was in her home. She then went missing, sparking fears that she may have run into foul play. People re-tweeted her message and #helpfindkara trended on the social network.

A preliminary investigation suggested that no foul play was involved in her disappearance. Investigators later discovered that someone had called a local taxi company at about the time the tweet was posted.

Police say the driver who responded to the Alongi home positively identified the 16-year-old girl as the fare he picked up. He told police he drove her to the Rahway train station.

Police Chief Alan Scherb said her apparent disappearance remains a missing person's investigation.

"Kara might feel that she will be in trouble if she comes home after this scare and causing a panic," Scherb said in a statement. "At this point, all everyone cares about is seeing her safe and at her house where she belongs."

Police responded to Alongi's home on Hall Drive in Clark Sunday evening. A person who answered the phone at the girl’s home quickly said ‘No comment” and hung up.

"She is currently still missing, but we are confident she left voluntarily," Scherb told Patch. "No abduction, no foul play. We are investigating this as a missing runaway juvenile.”

Twitter users worldwide tweeted messages of good will @KaraAlongi overnight as her initial post asking for help circulated. Many said they were frightened to think about what could have happened to her.

Others were skeptical about her pleas for help, pointing out a tweet that allegedly popped up on Alongi's account that said: "Why is everyone saying I'm missing? I was jkin haha" and was deleted a short time later.      

More content from NBCNews.com:

• California becomes first state in nation to bay 'gay cure' therapy for children
• 2 killed, 1 wounded in biker shooting at VFW lodge shooting
• Family demands answers in fatal shooting of woman by Border Patrol agent
• LA drivers steer clear of 'Carmageddon' freeway closure
• Wild horses sold by US later ending up at slaughterhouses?
• Video: Soldier surprised with message from military father

Follow US News from NBCNews.com on Twitter and Facebook