Wittenberg University announced that it had canceled all activities and events set for Sept. 15 after getting an email about a potential on-campus shooting threat in Springfield, Ohio.
The message targeted Haitian members of the community, according to an alert released by the school’s campus police department.
“University administrators recognize that the city of Springfield has experienced an increase of threats to local government, businesses, and schools in the past week. We take this threat seriously and will provide updates to the campus as we learn more about the situation.”
A blue-collar city that saw many of its factories shut down decades ago, Springfield’s population was about 60,000 until the past few years, when an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 Haitian immigrants arrived in the city.
In recent days, tensions have increased in Springfield after viral social media posts emerged of local residents alleging that Haitian immigrants were killing and eating dogs, cats, and geese in the city, which is located midway between Dayton and Columbus in southwest Ohio.
Videos of residents who spoke at the Aug. 27 city council meeting also talked about immigrants causing safety issues by crashing their vehicles into other cars, buildings, and pedestrians.
Springfield was catapulted onto the national stage during the presidential debate on Sept. 10 when former President Donald Trump said: “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.”
Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), Trump’s running mate, wrote on social media that the Haitian immigrants are “causing chaos all over Springfield.”
“Reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country,” Vance said.
City officials and police said they had not received reports of Haitians eating animals.
Bomb Threats
After Trump’s comments in the presidential debate, the Haitian migrant crisis in Springfield emerged as a hot-button issue in the national media and on social media. Law enforcement has dealt with multiple threats of violence in the city over the past week.Springfield City Hall, two elementary schools, and a few driver’s license bureaus received bomb threats on Sept. 12, Springfield Police Chief Allison Elliott said in a press conference.
Clark County court facilities were cleared that day out of “an abundance of caution,” according to Elliott.
The next day, students at two elementary schools were evacuated and transported to other locations in the district while a middle school was closed before the school day started, a Springfield City Schools spokesperson told reporters.
The evacuations were prompted by information that the school district received from the Springfield Police Department about an unspecified threat.
Also, city of Springfield spokesperson Karen Graves said city commissioners and a municipal employee were targeted by an emailed bomb threat. A second email threatened city hall, a school, the Bureau of Motor Vehicles, and a license bureau.
Springfield and Clark County authorities are working with local FBI agents to determine the origin of the emails, Elliott told reporters.
Springfield police also reported that a new round of bomb threats targeted two hospitals in the city on Sept. 14. The facilities were swept and cleared, according to police.
City in Transition
For months, residents have complained that the new residents from Haiti are causing traffic accidents.“They get behind the wheel with little or no education and training about driving laws here, and many of them don’t understand English, so they can’t read the street signs,” Springfield resident Rhonda Zimmers said.
Two Springfield residents, an 11-year-old boy and a 71-year-old woman, have been killed in accidents involving Haitian drivers.
Ohio Gov. Mike DeWine, a Republican, dispatched the Ohio State Highway Patrol on Sept. 11 to help local law enforcement with traffic issues in Springfield.
Residents have also expressed frustration over longer wait times at hospitals, grocery stores, driver’s license bureaus, and Jobs and Family Services, among other facilities, since the surge of Haitian migrants started.
Kyle Koehler, a former state representative in the district that represents Springfield, is a Republican candidate for state Senate in the region that covers three counties, including Clark County.
Cultural differences between residents and immigrants have also resulted in tensions, he said.
“They don’t understand the laws; they don’t understand some of our customs. We don’t understand some of their customs, and that clash and the overwhelming amount of people that have come at one point has really caused some issues,” Koehler said.
Haitian migrants in Springfield receive between $600 and $1,600 per month on debit cards through the Refugee Cash Assistance program, Koehler said in a recent campaign speech. They can also access public assistance programs available to U.S. citizens, he noted.
Job and Family Services has registered more than 20,000 Haitian refugees in Clark County and Springfield, he said.
Springfield’s public school system now has more than 1,600 non-English speaking students, according to Koehler.
Yost said earlier this week that he is ordering an investigation into ways to stop what he described as “extreme population growth” due to immigrants coming into the city of Springfield.
“The problem is not migrants; it is way, way too many migrants in a short period of time. The problem is a massive increase in the population without any communication or assistance from the federal government.”
On Sept. 14, the Haitian Times and the Haitian Community Help and Support Center organized an event with activists, Haitian residents, and media members to discuss the claims that immigrants were killing and eating pets and wild animals.
Macollvie Neal, executive editor of the Haitian Times, said the gathering was originally scheduled to occur in-person in Springfield, but organizers chose to host a virtual event instead.
