Springfield, Ohio, City Steps Up Security viral, false statements Rumors that Haitian immigrants steal and eat pets continue to circulate after being amplified by former President Donald Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. J.D. Vance.
Gov. Mike DeWine announced Monday afternoon that he would send three dozen state police officers to increase security at city schools after a “series of baseless bomb threats.”
“Parents are afraid, and when they’re afraid, we have to respond. And I don’t blame them,” DeWine said in an interview with CBS News.
The Republican governor said in a statement that many of the threats “come from abroad” and come from people “who want to fuel the current discord around Springfield.”
DeWine has pushed back against false allegations about immigrants, saying he trusts city officials who say they have received no credible reports of such conduct.
“The Internet is the Internet. Crazy things happen on it. You read crazy things all the time. They spread. And I think sometimes that’s exactly what happens. So my job, I think, and the mayor’s job, is to say, ‘Look, that’s not true,’” DeWine said.
The decision to deploy state police came after two Springfield elementary schools were evacuated and two local middle schools moved classes online due to threats. The city also canceled a major cultural festival later this month as a safety precaution.
“If they would tone down their rhetoric a little bit, it might help our environment. It would help. We need help, not hate. We need help,” Springfield Mayor Rob Rue told CBS News.
Over the weekend, members of the far-right Proud Boys group were seen marching in the streets, and a branch of the Ku Klux Klan distributed leaflets containing hateful messages.
Last week, Vance shared the baseless rumor on social media, stating: “Reports are now showing that pets are being taken and eaten by people who should not be in this country.”
Trump then repeated it during his debate against Vice President Kamala Harris“In Springfield, they eat the dogs, the people who came, they eat the cats.” Trump said during the debate“They eat the pets of the people who live there. This is what is happening in our country, it is a shame.”
Vance addressed the controversy over the weekend, saying he condemns all violence, but he also defended sharing the denied allegations and refusing to correct the situation.
“People are frustrated by the national media attention. Some are also grateful that finally someone is paying attention to what’s going on,” Vance said on “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan.” “You’re never going to get this thing perfect.”
In an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash, Vance said, “If I have to create stories to make the American media actually pay attention to the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do.”
Asked whether it was acceptable for a senator to make something up, DeWine said: “I don’t know if that’s what he meant. I think he wants to use this, I guess, to illustrate a problem that we do have, and that’s a problem along our southern border.”
The governor acknowledged that the arrival of 15,000 immigrants in a city of just under 60,000 people over the past two years poses challenges, including overburdening health care systems.
In Little Haiti, Springfield, Romane Pierre is the manager of a Creole restaurant who has been bombarded with calls. He thinks Vance should apologize.
“A lot of people call me and ask, ‘Do you sell cats, do you sell dogs?’ I say, ‘No, we don’t sell that kind of thing,’” Pierre explains.
“Haitians are good people,” he added.
Nikole Killion
