Sept. 13 (UPI) — Springfield, Ohio, schools were evacuated again Friday amid bomb threats following Donald Trump’s far-right conspiracy theory about migrants eating pets.
One middle school and two elementary schools were closed by threats Friday.
Roosevelt Middle School closed before students arrived Friday, and Perrin Woods and Snowhill elementary schools evacuated students after the threats came in Friday morning.
City buildings, a courthouse and at least one school were evacuated Thursday as the city continued dealing with threats after Trump said falsely during Tuesday’s presidential debate that Haitian immigrants in the city were eating people’s pets.
Springfield city officials said an email Friday morning targeted several city commissioners and a city employee, and a second email Friday morning targeted several schools, Bureau of Motor Vehicles and the Ohio License Bureau Southside.
Springfield police are working with the Dayton FBI office to track down the source of the threats.
Springfield City Manager Brian Heck said in a video statement that there is no evidence migrants there are eating people’s pets as claimed by Trump.
“It is disappointing that some of the narrative surrounding our city has been skewed by misinformation circulating on social media and further amplified by political rhetoric in the current highly charged presidential election cycle,” Heck said.
Heck said due to a robust and diverse industrial base, there’s growing appeal among new residents, including a rapidly growing migrant population, and that has strained municipal resources.
But he said that is contributing to the stabilization of the local economy.
On Thursday local and federal law enforcement responded to a bomb threat against multiple Springfield facilities.
Springfield Police Chief Allison Elliott said during a Thursday press conference, “This public safety threat prompted an immediate response from local and regional law enforcement and our public safety partners.”
Springfield Mayor Bob Rue told the Washington Post the threat “used hateful language towards immigrants and Haitians in our community.”
The threat used hateful language against the city’s migrants that aligned with the false claims spread by Republicans.
The false rumors started when local news stations reported a story of a woman arrested for allegedly killing and eating someone’s cat.
But it happened two hours away from Springfield and the woman was born in the United States and is not a migrant.
