A university in Ohio announced it is canceling campus activities on Sunday and is increasing the number of police officers on campus after receiving a shooting threat.

“Wittenberg University is currently taking extreme precautions following an email that threatened a potential shooting on campus tomorrow, Sunday, September 15, 2024. The message targeted Haitian members of our community,” the university, located in Springfield, said in an alert to students.

In the statement, Wittenberg Police said it is cooperating with the Springfield Police Division and the FBI to investigate the shooting threat.

Students, faculty and staff are urged to be cautious and alert of their surroundings. Anyone who will be on or near campus should prepare for additional instructions or a potential lockdown.

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All campus activities scheduled for Sunday have been canceled.

“University administrators recognize that the city of Springfield has experienced an increase of threats to local government, businesses, and schools in the past week,” the university said. “We take this threat seriously and will provide updates to the campus as we learn more about the situation.”

The university said it is taking “extreme precautions” after an email threatened a shooting on campus on Sunday against members of the Haitian community. (iStock)

The alert comes amid national attention given to Springfield and its Haitian migrants from former President Trump, his running mate, Sen. JD Vance R-Ohio, and others.

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In the alert, the university provided several safety tips for students and those who visit the campus.

“Always be aware of your surroundings when you are out and about on campus or in the community. Close and lock your room door when you are sleeping or studying in your room. Report unusual activities or suspicious individuals immediately to the campus police, including those outside of residence halls and housing. Be alert of strangers who might attend gatherings at your residence and take action to address their presence by calling Wittenberg Police to respond. Do not allow others to ‘tailgate’ behind you to gain entry into a secured building or space,” the notice read. 

It also said: “Threats towards our campus community are unacceptable. We encourage you to report any crime to law enforcement.”

Springfield Police will increase patrols on campus on Sunday. (iStock)

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Anyone who observes suspicious activity is encouraged to contact the Wittenberg Police Division immediately at its emergency line, 937-327-6363. The non-emergency line is 937-327-6231.

Springfield, a city of roughly 60,000, has seen its Haitian population grow in recent years. The city says the Haitian migrants are in the country legally under a federal program that allows them to temporarily be there.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

Police in Dayton, Ohio, have said there is no evidence that immigrants are eating pets, calling new allegations that emerged online on Saturday “irresponsible.” 

The police statement was issued hours after a new video and article alleged African immigrants in Dayton were seen preparing to grill dead cats. The claim was shared by Sen. JD Vance of Ohio, the Republican vice presidential nominee, Donald Trump Jr., and others on X.

Dayton Police Chief Kamran Afzal said in a statement, “We stand by our immigrant community and there is no evidence to even remotely suggest that any group, including our immigrant community, is engaged in eating pets. Seeing politicians or other individuals use outlandish information to appeal to their constituents is disheartening.” 

The new claim followed baseless allegations that Haitian immigrants were abducting and eating pets in Springfield, a city less than 30 miles from Dayton. Former President Donald Trump repeated the claim in Tuesday night’s debate, despite city officials saying there was no evidence of this happening. 

On Saturday, Vance doubled down on the claims that immigrants were eating pets, sharing the new allegation on X. 

“Kamala Harris and her media apparatchiks should be ashamed of themselves,” Vance wrote. “Another ‘debunked’ story that turned out to have merit.”

New claim 

Christopher Rufo, a conservative writer and activist published the new claim on Substack and the allegations are based on a video originally posted to social media in August 2023. 

CBS News confirmed the original video was first posted to social media in August 2023 by a man who lives in Dayton, Ohio. CBS News reached out to the man for comment but did not hear back on Saturday afternoon.

The video shows what appears to be animal carcasses on a grill. The man filming the footage alleges, without evidence, that they are cats. 

“What is this they got on the grill?” the man says in the video. When two cats appear near the grill, the man jokes that the cats “better get missing — looks like his homey’s on the grill!” 

Rufo said he spoke to the man who filmed the video, and the man believes the carcasses were cats. Rufo said he worked on the story with IM-1776, an online magazine, and one of their reporters visited the building where the incident was alleged to have happened. The reporter spoke to neighbors, who said that African immigrants lived in the building. Neighbors told the reporter they believed the people who owned the grill were also African immigrants, although the residents’ origin or identity wasn’t verified by CBS News.

The new allegation also prompted backlash and skepticism, with many users saying the carcasses look more like chickens. CBS News has reached out to veterinary experts for their opinion on what type of carcass is on the grill. 

Dayton Mayor Jeffrey J. Mims, Jr. also issued a statement, calling the claim “totally false and dangerously irresponsible of politicians aiming to sow division and fear.” Mims said there had been “absolutely zero reports of this type of activity.”

Donald Trump shocked audiences at this week’s presidential debate with the claim that foreign migrants were eating household pets in Springfield, Ohio, a small town currently reeling under the strain of an unprecedented number of new arrivals, mostly from Haiti. “They’re eating the dogs,” Trump said. “They’re eating the cats.”

Reactions on both sides were spirited. Conservative social media accounts created memes that portrayed Trump, dressed in camouflage, and toting heavy weapons, as the savior of innocent pets. There was even a viral TikTok trend, which chopped up Trump’s speech and set it to dance music. “They’re eating the dogs, they’re eating cats,” the music thumped. “Eat the cat! Eat, eat the cat!”

The establishment media was not amused. During the debate, ABC’s David Muir dismissed Trump’s rhetoric with his version of a fact check, citing the Springfield city manager’s statement that “there have been no credible reports of specific claims of pets being harmed, injured, or abused by individuals within the immigrant community.” Other publications went further, blasting the former president for spreading a “racist smear,” a “century-old stereotype,” and a “cat-eating conspiracy theory.”

So, is there any truth to the charge? We have conducted an exclusive investigation that reveals that, yes, in fact, some migrants in Ohio appear to have been “eating the cats,” though not exactly in the manner that Trump described.

Our investigation begins in a run-down neighborhood of Dayton, Ohio, the closest major city to Springfield, about a half-hour’s drive away. We identified a social media post, dated August 25, 2023, with a short video depicting what appear to be two skinned cats on top of a blue barbeque. “Yoooo the Africans wildn on Parkwood,” reads the text, referring to Parkwood Drive. The video then pans down to two live cats walking across the grass in front of a run-down fence, with a voice on the video warning: “There go a cat right there. His ass better get missin’, man. Look like his homies on the grill!”

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We spoke with the author of the video, who asked to remain anonymous but confirmed its time, location, and authenticity. He told us that he was picking up his son last summer, when he noticed the unusual situation. “It was some Africans that stay right next door to my kid’s mother,” he said. “This African dude next door had the damn cat on the grill.”

We then identified the home by matching it to the visuals in the video and cross-referencing them with the eyewitness. When we knocked on the door of the first unit, a family answered, telling us they were from the Democratic Republic of the Congo and that all of the surrounding units were occupied by other African migrants.

One of the residents told us that her former neighbors, also from Africa, had lived in the adjacent unit until last month. They had a blue grill and the father would find meat in the neighborhood. “Her dad was going to find meat,” she said. “Her dad was going, holding a knife.” The current residents also showed us a blue grill of the same make and model as in the video, which the former neighbors had abandoned after they moved out. There were at least ten cats wandering around the complex and another resident complained that they were breeding on the property.

According to the original witness, whose son was friendly with the neighbors, there was no doubt about what happened last summer. “They was barbecuing the damn cat!” he said. His son’s mother had previously witnessed the family butchering a mammal on the street, but the cats on the barbeque put him in such a state of shock, he felt the need to film it.

To be clear: this single incident does not confirm every particularity of Trump’s statement. The town is Dayton, not Springfield; cats alone were on the grill, not cats and dogs. But it does break the general narrative peddled by the establishment media and its “fact checkers,” who insisted that this has never happened, and that any suggestion otherwise is somehow an expression of racism.

It takes only a single exception, however, to falsify a hypothesis, and the logical next step, for any honest broker, is to ask if it is happening more often, and elsewhere. It is not implausible. Many developing nations, including the Congo and Haiti, have traditions of animal sacrifice or consumption of what Americans would consider household pets. And if this occurred in Dayton, where the migrant population is relatively small, it could be going on down the road in Springfield, where it is relatively much larger.

Independent journalists are already on the hunt and could reveal more. The Daily Wire has dispatched a reporter to Springfield to investigate. The Federalist has published a police report with allegations that a group of Haitians emerged from a city trail with dead geese in hand. Ohio’s attorney general, Dave Yost, has backed up this claim, arguing that citizens with such firsthand knowledge “would be competent witnesses in court.”

There is a legitimate debate to be had about migration and culture. All immigrants bring with them a particular tradition, which, in the case of countries such as Haiti and the Congo, can include practices that many Americans find disturbing. This cultural divide causes understandable consternation for non-migrants living in the rougher parts of places like Dayton and Springfield. They don’t enjoy the luxury of many in the establishment media, who can maintain a safe distance, condescending to those who raise the alarm while not even bothering to investigate anything themselves.

These revelations do not mean that assimilation is impossible, but the establishment will need to engage in a more honest debate, rather than simply smearing critics as racists and conspiracy theorists. One can make the case for migration, but one cannot, at the same time, deny that it comes with costs—which, in this case, seem to include a pair of flayed cats on a blue barbeque in Dayton, Ohio.