The city of Springfield, Ohio, is stepping up security as viral, false claims about Haitian immigrants stealing and eating pets continue to circulate after being amplified by former President Donald Trump and his running mate, Ohio Sen. JD Vance.
Gov. Mike DeWine announced Monday afternoon he was sending three dozen state troopers to provide added security to schools in the city after a “series of unfounded bomb threats.”
“Look, parents are scared, and when parents are scared, we need to react. 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 “are coming in from overseas” from people “who want to fuel the current discord surrounding Springfield.”
DeWine has pushed back against the false claims about immigrants, saying that he trusts city officials who say they have not received any credible reports of such conduct.
“The internet is the internet. Crazy stuff occurs on the internet. You read crazy stuff all the time. It gets spread. And I think sometimes, you know, that’s just what happens. So my job, I think, and the job of the mayor, is to say, ‘Look, this is not true,'” DeWine said.
The decision to station state troopers came after two elementary schools in Springfield were evacuated and two local colleges moved their classes online due to the threats. The city also canceled a major cultural festival at the end of the month as a safety precaution.
“If they just backed off their words a little bit, this could help our environment. This 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 were seen marching through the streets, and a branch of the Ku Klux Klan spread leaflets with hateful messages.
Last week, Vance shared the baseless rumor on social media, saying, “Reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country.”
Trump then repeated it during his debate against Vice President Kamala Harris. “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs — the people that came in — they’re eating the cats,” Trump said at the debate. “They’re eating — they’re eating the pets of the people that live there. And this is what’s happening in our country, and it’s a shame.”
Vance addressed the controversy over the weekend, saying he condemns all violence, but he also defended sharing the debunked claims and refused to correct the record.
“People are frustrated with the national media attention. Some people 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 stuff perfect.”
In an interview with CNN’s Dana Bash, Vance said, “If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention the suffering of the American people, then that’s what I’m going to do.”
When asked if it’s OK for a senator to make something up, DeWine said, “Well, I don’t know that that’s what he meant. I think he wants to use this, I guess, to illustrate a problem that we really do have, and that is a problem along our southern border.”
The governor acknowledged that there are challenges that come with 15,000 immigrants settling in a city with a population of just under 60,000 in the last couple of years — like health care systems being overloaded.
In Springfield’s Little Haiti, Romane Pierre is a manager at a Creole restaurant that has been bombarded with calls. He believes Vance should apologize.
“A lot of people call me and say, ‘Do you sell cat, do you sell dog?’ I say, ‘No, we don’t sell these kinds of things,'” Pierre said.
“Haitian are good people,” he added.
