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False claims by Donald Trump and JD Vance that Haitian immigrants in an Ohio town have been eating people’s pet cats and dogs and “walking off” with geese have dominated the run-up to November’s election. Now it has emerged that someone really has been killing geese – and it isn’t a Haitian immigrant.
Brian Comer of Springfield was issued a citation last month for shooting two geese at a golf course, according to Clark County Municipal Court filings first reported by Texas-based investigative journalist Steven Monacelli. A witness told an officer ahead of Comer’s citation that he saw a “white male, in his late fifties or early sixties” riding a lawnmower before getting off and shooting two geese with a shotgun, the court filings reveal.
Comer was “cooperative” and admitted to shooting the two geese, according to the court filings. Comer told an officer with the Ohio Department of Natural Resources he believed he was entitled to shoot them because the golf course had a “nuisance permit.” An officer then issued him a citation.
He pleaded guilty at his September 18 arraignment, Clark County records show.
Comer’s citation was issued as Trump and Vance spread the false claim that Haitian immigrants were stealing and eating residents’ pets in Springfield. Trump also went on to claim that “migrants are walking off” with geese in the town.
“A recording of 911 calls show that residents are reporting that the migrants are walking off with the town’s geese,” Trump said at a rally in Tuscon, Arizona on September 12, two days after authorities say Comer shot the geese.
“They’re taking the geese,” he added. “You know where the geese are? In the park, in the lake. And even walking off with their pets.”
Just before Trump made this claim, a photo went viral online of a man picking up two geese. The animals had been hit by a car in Columbus, roughly 45 minutes away from Springfield, the Ohio Division of Wildlife said at the time.
In order to collect a carcass, residents need documentation from a county sheriff or wildlife officer, the wildlife organization said at the time, but according to the Franklin County Wildlife Office, this is not required for geese, meaning the photographed person had a right to them.
There is also no evidence that the person photographed is Haitian, an immigrant or that he ever intended to eat the geese.
Trump also repeated the claim that Haitian immigrants are eating pets during his debate against Kamala Harris on September 10. Debate moderator David Muir fact-checked Trump, stating the claim was unfounded, but the former president doubled down.
Trump and Vance’s claims have been repeatedly debunked by Springfield’s police department, city officials and Ohio’s Republican governor Mike DeWine. Local officials have also made it clear that Haitian immigrants who recently arrived in the city did so legally.
Springfield City Manager Bryan Heck had even told a Vance staffer directly on September 9 that the pet-eating rumors were not true when he called to verify, The Wall Street Journal reported last month.
“He asked point-blank, ‘Are the rumors true of pets being taken and eaten?’” Heck told the WSJ. “I told him no. There was no verifiable evidence or reports to show this was true. I told them these claims were baseless.”
Vance still shared the conspiracy theory on X to his 1.9 million followers and did not remove the post even after his staffer was told there was no truth to them.
He then tried to prove the claims by pointing to a police report from one resident that alleged her cat may have been stolen by her Haitian neighbors.
The cat, Miss Sassy, was hiding in the basement the whole time, her owner Anna Kilgore told the WSJ. Kilgore apologized to her neighbors for the mix-up with the help of a translation app, she told the outlet.
A Vance spokesperson previously told The Independent the media is “ignoring” real concerns and “purposely twisting Senator Vance’s words.”
“Senator Vance has received countless messages from residents of Springfield on the disastrous effects Kamala Harris’s immigration policies have created for their hometown: a shortage of affordable housing, stressed public resources, declining public safety, and spikes in communicable disease,” the spokesperson wrote.
As the baseless conspiracy theory spread last month, Haitian residents reported feeling scared for their safety.
James Fleurijean, a Haitian Community Help & Support Center member, told ABC News that parents are even afraid to send their kids to school as the rhetoric spreads.
“I know some parents like for this period of time they’re trying to keep their children home, like, by the time they see how things gonna be, like, wait for a couple of weeks to see if things that are calm down, or if things gonna escalate,” Fleurijean told the outlet last month. “You see, that’s why, like some parents, they don’t even send their children to school, like, for this week.”
The Independent has contacted Trump’s spokesperson and Comer for comment.
