The mayor of Springfield, Ohio, said a bomb threat Thursday that led to the evacuation of City Hall and numerous buildings “used hateful language towards immigrants and Haitians in our community.”
“Springfield is a community that needs help,” Mayor Rob Rue said in an interview with The Washington Post. The mayor added that national leaders should provide that help and not “hurt a community like, unfortunately, we have seen over the last couple of days.”
The Ohio city recently gained national attention as it became the subject of dehumanizing and xenophobic conspiracy theories amplified by former president Donald Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), who claimed Haitian immigrants there were killing and eating people’s pets. Police officials have repeatedly said there is no evidence to support the claim, which Trump repeated in Tuesday night’s presidential debate.
“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs. The people that came in, they’re eating the cats. They’re eating — they’re eating the pets of the people that live there,” Trump said at the ABC News debate between him and Vice President Kamala Harris that 67 million people watched. “And this is what’s happening in our country. And it’s a shame.”
When moderator David Muir pushed back, saying that the city manager of Springfield has said there were no credible reports of such claims, Trump refused to concede.
“I’ve seen people on television. … The people on television say my dog was taken and used for food,” Trump said, interrupting Muir. “So maybe he said that, and maybe that’s a good thing to say for a city manager.”
Earlier this week, White House national security spokesman John Kirby called the unsubstantiated reports Vance had pushed “dangerous” misinformation.
“Because there will be people that believe it, no matter how ludicrous and stupid it is. And they might act on that kind of misinformation, and act on it in a way where somebody can get hurt, so it needs to stop,” Kirby said Tuesday, ahead of the debate.
Representatives for the Trump campaign didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment Thursday.
Springfield Police Chief Allison Elliott confirmed that Thursday’s threat targeted City Hall and other buildings in the city, including an elementary school. Elliott, who did not take questions at a brief afternoon news conference, also said officials cleared and checked several additional buildings in the surrounding area out of an abundance of caution. She told reporters that local law enforcement is working with the FBI’s Dayton, Ohio, office to identify the source of the threat.
Trump seemingly continued to push the false claims about the Ohio city by posting cat-themed memes to social media Thursday afternoon. One digital illustration shared by Trump on Truth Social shows a litter of nearly identical kittens holding a sign that says, “Don’t let them eat us, vote for Trump!” Another shows an orange cat with a furrowed brow holding a sign that says, “Kamala hates me.” The images have telltale signs of being created with AI, such as design flaws, anatomical oversights and grammatical errors.
In a video posted to the city’s Facebook page a day before the bomb threats, Springfield City Manager Bryan Heck disputed the narrative involving the city and attributed the criticism from those outside the state to “misinformation circulating on social media and further amplified by the political rhetoric in the current, highly charged presidential election cycle.”
Maegan Vazquez contributed to this report.