SPRINGFIELD, Ohio — The woman behind an early Facebook post spreading a harmful and baseless claim about Haitian immigrants eating local pets that helped thrust a small Ohio city into the national spotlight says she had no firsthand knowledge of any such incident and is now filled with regret and fear as a result of the ensuing fallout.

“It just exploded into something I didn’t mean to happen,” Erika Lee, a Springfield resident, told NBC News on Friday.

Lee recently posted on Facebook about a neighbor’s cat that went missing, adding that the neighbor told Lee she thought the cat was the victim of an attack by her Haitian neighbors.

Newsguard, a media watchdog that monitors for misinformation online, found that Lee had been among the first people to publish a post to social media about the rumor, screenshots of which circulated online. The neighbor, Kimberly Newton, said she heard about the attack from a third party, NewsGuard reported. 

Newton told Newsguard that Lee’s Facebook post misstated her story, and that the owner of the missing cat was “an acquaintance of a friend” rather than her daughter’s friend. Newton could not be reached for comment.

Lee said she had no idea the post would become part of a rumor mill that would spiral into the national consciousness. She has since deleted the Facebook post. 

Other posts have also contributed to the false allegations, including a photo of a man holding a dead goose that was taken in Columbus, Ohio, but was spread by some online as evidence of the claims about Springfield. Graphic video of a woman who allegedly killed and tried to eat a cat was also found not to have originated in Springfield but in Canton, Ohio, and does not have any connection to the Haitian community.

Local police and city officials have repeatedly said there is no evidence of such crimes in Springfield, but that hasn’t stopped the lies from spreading across the country and igniting a national frenzy that landed on the presidential debate stage this week. Former President Donald Trump and his running mate Ohio Sen. JD Vance, who was born less than an hour away from Springfield, have repeated the baseless allegations.

Lee said she never imagined her post would become fodder for conspiracy theories and hate.

“I’m not a racist,” she said through heavy emotion, adding that her daughter is half Black and she herself is mixed race and a member of the LGBTQ community. “Everybody seems to be turning it into that, and that was not my intent.”

The anti-immigrant fervor in Springfield led to school and municipal building closures on Thursday and Friday after city officials received bomb threats. 

Lee said she pulled her daughter out of school and is now worried about her safety with so much attention on her family. She is also concerned for the safety of the Haitian community, which she said she did not intend to villainize en masse. 

“I feel for the Haitian community,” she said. “If I was in the Haitians’ position, I’d be terrified, too, worried that somebody’s going to come after me because they think I’m hurting something that they love and that, again, that’s not what I was trying to do.”

Immigrant advocacy groups have said these kinds of claims can be dangerous.

“The Haitian-American community in Springfield, OH and around the country is feeling targeted and unsafe because dehumanizing, debunked and racist conspiracies are being advanced at the highest levels of American politics and are still being repeated,” Vanessa Cárdenas, executive director of America’s Voice, a nonprofit that advocates for immigration refor said in an email. “The false claim that Black immigrants are violently attacking American families by stealing and eating their pets is a powerful and old racist trope that puts a target on people’s backs, and it is turbo-charged in the era of MAGA when political violence has become commonplace and we have already witnessed violent incidents incited by such rhetoric.”

Lee said that there are very real problems related to Springfield’s population boom that caught the struggling city off guard. Springfield was not prepared to address the housing, health care and other service needs that came with the sudden increase of new residents over the last five years when Haitians arrived, many of them with protected status under federal law. 

Still, she never imagined that her Facebook post would set off a national news cycle.

“I didn’t think it would ever get past Springfield,” she said.

Two Springfield, Ohio, elementary schools were evacuated Thursday after they were named in a bomb threat that included hateful language towards Haitian immigrants.

“My hometown of Springfield is becoming a third-world (expletive) because you allowed the federal government to dump these (expletive) here,” read the threat, which was emailed to multiple agencies and media outlets. “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…”

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A spokesperson for Springfield City Schools said students at Fulton Elementary School were evacuated and taken to Springfield High School, WDTN reports. Springfield Academy of Excellence was also evacuated, and Clark State College announced its Brinkman building in downtown Springfield would be closed Thursday “out of an abundance of caution.”

Springfield Mayor Rob Rue said the bomb threat also forced the evacuation of city hall, the state motor vehicle agency’s local facility, and other buildings, Yahoo News reports. No bomb was found after the threat.

Presidential Debate Thrusts Springfield Into Spotlight

Springfield has received national attention in recent days after former President Donald Trump repeated unfounded rumors during Tuesday’s presidential debate about Haitian migrants eating peoples’ pets.

“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs, the people that came in,” Trump said. “They’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of the people that live there. This is what’s happening in our country, and it’s a shame.”

Springfield City Manager Bryan Heck released a statement saying there’s no evidence of any pets being harmed or eaten by its Haitian immigrants.

“Obviously, the negative response and threats are very sad and hard to handle,” Rue said. “We want to move forward together, and it just makes it more difficult to do that when we have violent actions and threats.”

Second Bomb Threat Made Against 3 Springfield Schools

On Friday, two more Springfield City schools were evacuated and one closed after another threat was emailed to local media outlets, according to WHIO. A district spokesperson said Perrin Woods and Snowhill Elementary students were evacuated to an alternate location Friday morning after receiving information from the Springfield Police Division.

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Roosevelt Middle School was also closed before the start of the school day. Some parents arriving with their students were turned away, according to reports. Clark Park High School, which is not part of the Springfield City School District, was also evacuated after it was named in the threat.

It is not yet clear if the threat is linked to Thursday’s threat or if it mentions Haitian migrants.

Springfield Officials: Haitian Migrant Population Straining Resources

Tensions have grown over the increasing Haitian population in Springfield as the volume and pace of the arrivals have put pressure on city housing, healthcare, and schools. Haitian immigrants have increased Springfield’s population by 25-30% over a three-year period, according to Rue.

“Rumors like this are taking away from the real issues such as issues involving our housing or school resources and our overwhelmed healthcare system,” he told the Springfield News-Sun.

The city was previously propelled into the national debate over immigration after 11-year-old Aiden Clark was killed last year when a minivan driven by a Haitian immigrant struck his school bus. On Tuesday, Trump’s running mate, Ohio Senator JD Vance, mentioned Clark in a post on X that said “a child was murdered by a Haitian immigrant.” Later that day, Clark’s father, Nathan Clark, said Vance and others were exploiting his son’s death for political gain.

“My son was not murdered. He was accidentally killed by an immigrant from Haiti,” Clark said during a Springfield City Commission meeting. “This tragedy is felt all over this community, the state, and even the nation, but don’t spin this towards hate.”

Ohio Governor to Send More Resources to Springfield

Ohio Governor Mike DeWine issued a press release Wednesday announcing the state would send healthcare and public safety support to Clark County, which houses Springfield. More specifically, DeWine said he would dedicate $2.5 million to expanding primary care access “for everyone living in Springfield.”

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“The federal government needs to assist these communities with funding because these dramatic migrant surges impact every citizen in the community — the moms who have to wait hours in a waiting room with a sick child, everyone who drives on our streets, and the children who go to school in more crowded classrooms,” he wrote. “The federal government does not have a plan to give any support to the communities impacted by surges, and we have absolutely no indication that a plan is coming in the near future.”

DeWine’s press release also outlined additional support the state is providing to address the increase in the Haitian population, including the creation of a school-based health clinic in the Springfield City School District to expand primary care access for school children and their parents.

DeWine said migrants are choosing Springfield because of its job opportunities, noting employers say they have “done a very, very good job, and they work very, very hard,” The Hill reports.

Four years ago, our editorial board endorsed Lake County Commissioner Jerry Cirino for election to an open seat in an 18th Ohio Senate District that then covered parts of Lake and Geauga counties and all of Portage County. We cited his proven small-business track record and focus on economic development.

The 18th has since been redistricted to include all of Lake County and about 20 communities in eastern and southern Cuyahoga County, including Brecksville, Solon, Mayfield Heights, Seven Hills, Independence and Cuyahoga Heights. And Cirino, 72, has not lived up to the expectations our editorial board cited in supporting his election.