The mayor of Springfield, Ohio, has said that the bomb threat made on Thursday that forced the evacuation of the city hall, two schools, and other buildings was explicitly anti-immigrant and hostile to the city’s Haitian community, following Donald Trump’s stoking of a rightwing conspiracy theory that some residents’ pets are being eaten.
Rob Rue, the mayor, accused national Republicans who are amplifying wild rumors from a far-right provocateur that Haitian immigrants in Springfield are hunting and eating other people’s pets of “hurting our city”.
The bomb threat on Thursday morning “used hateful language towards immigrants and Haitians in our community”, Rue told the Washington Post, and added that Springfield “is a community that needs help”.
No bomb was found after the threat was made. But Rue told the local Fox outlet that, in the threat, “there was enough negative language toward immigrants, towards Haitian folks that would bring enough concern. And then when it followed up with … at the end, of a bomb threat … It was pretty much just the beginning of the conclusion that they’re going to threaten to harm people.”
Springfield has been the subject of national attention in recent days after the false social media rumor about the Haitian community.
Trump even referenced the conspiracy theory in Tuesday night’s debate with opponent Kamala Harris. Trump repeated the inflammatory falsehood, saying: “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating the cats … They’re eating the pets of the people that live there.” His move triggered a wave of anger and ridicule.
That same day, JD Vance mentioned the rumor on X (formerly Twitter), which has also been flooded with AI-generated images of Trump surrounded by dogs, cats and ducks.
Rue held a press conference on Tuesday condemning the rumors as totally false, with “zero” verified reports of such disparaging claims. ABC’s debate moderator David Muir made the same factcheck live on Tuesday night after Trump’s remarks.
Rue told the Springfield News-Sun: “Rumors like this are taking away from the real issues such as issues involving our housing or school resources and our overwhelmed healthcare system.”
Meanwhile, during a Springfield city commission forum, Nathan Clark, the father of an 11-year-old boy who was killed last year when a minivan driven by an immigrant from Haiti collided with his school bus, told Trump and Vance to stop using his son’s name for “political gain”.
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