Two Springfield schools are evacuated as Ohio town is besieged with threats over Haitian migrants debacle

Two Springfield schools were evacuated on Friday after the Ohio town was besieged with threats over the Haitian migrant debacle. 

Students from Perrin Woods Elementary School and Snowhill Elementary School were forced out of the building on Friday morning and moved to an 'alternate district location,' according to the Springfield City School District. 

Students are now being released back into the care of their parents, The Columbus Dispatch reported.

The schools were evacuated after police received some information. What information police received that caused such alarm is currently unknown, however, Springfield mayor, Rob Rue, told The Springfield News-Sun that complaints over the Haitian migrants were part of the threat.

Multiple other schools have also been evacuated since yesterday and come after the town became a national conversation piece over claims Haitian migrants are eating cats.

Yesterday, Fulton Elementary School was evacuated and Roosevelt Middle School was closed before the school day even began due to the same information that shut down Perrin Woods and Snowhill, according to The Dispatch. 

However, no other schools have received threats, according to the district. 

Yesterday, City Hall was evacuated after multiple city facilities received bomb threats, The Dispatch reported. Every Clark County building was also shut down out of an 'abundance of caution.' 

The bomb threat, obtained by USA Today, was emailed to multiple agencies around 8:30am on Thursday saying a bomb would detonate inside the building within hours and referenced the dispelled rumors about Haitian migrants. 

'My hometown of Springfield is becoming a third world (expletive) because you allowed the federal government to dump these (expletive) here,' the email read. 

'We have Haitians eating our animals and then you lie and claim this is not happening when we see this happening. I’m here to send a message, I placed a bomb in the following locations...' 

The town of Springfield has been a flashpoint in the debate over immigration ever since droves of Haitian migrants arrived in the city in 2020 to fill jobs vacancies.

Willing to do the blue-collar jobs locals were unenthusiastic about, the Haitians, who were already in the country legally, moved to the town.

Within a few years, 20,000 immigrants arrived, swelling Springfield's population, which was only 58,000 in 2020.

The Haitians had social security numbers and job permits, paid taxes, and lived in houses that were empty and boarded up as the town shrank. 

The immigrants are there legally and eligible to apply for Temporary Protected Status, according to an Immigration FAQ page on the city's website, which says the total immigration population in Clark County is an estimated 12,000 to 15,000.

Erika Lee, 35, circulated the rumor that a migrants were eating cats on Facebook, with the post eventually making it to Donald Trump's campaign. 

Lee admitted to NewsGuard that she heard the rumor of Haitian migrants eating cats in her town through her neighbor Kimberly Newton, who heard it through a friend, who heard it from the alleged cat owner.

'Warning to all about our beloved pets and those around us!!' Lee wrote on Springfield Ohio Crime and Information Facebook group.

'My neighbor informed me that her daughter's friend had lost her cat. One day she came home from work, as soon as she stepped out of her car, looked toward a neighbor's house, where Haitians live, and saw her cat hanging from a branch, like you'd do a deer for butchering, and they were carving it up to eat.

'I've been told they are doing this to dogs, they have been doing it at Snyder Park with the ducks and geese, and I was told that last bit by Rangers and police. Please keep a close eye on these animals.'

The post has since been deleted, but not before it took off to national heights and even landed on the debate stage, where Republican nominee Donald Trump repeated the alarming claim.

The first claims about pets being eaten over in Springfield were raised at a city commission meeting on July 30.

One aggrieved man made the claim during a meeting to address the influx of legal Haitian immigrants - which has revitalized the local economy, but also sparked controversy among locals.

'I really challenge you guys to get out here and do something,' he told the meeting. 'These Haitians are running into trash cans, running into buildings, they're flipping cars in the middle of the streets.

'They're in the park, grabbing up ducks by their neck, and cutting their head off and walking off with them. They're eating them.'

The viral claim also featured a photograph of a man appearing to hold a large bird walking down the street, a picture which originated in Columbus, Ohio. It was just a goose.