The town of Springfield, Ohio, once again faced bomb threats on Friday, Sept. 13. The threats forced the evacuation of schools and municipal buildings for the second day in a row. Springfield has been at the center of national politics since the presidential debate on Tuesday, Sept. 10, between former President Donald Trump and Vice President Kamala Harris.
Law enforcement said that several city commissioners and city employees were reportedly the targets of an emailed bomb threat on Friday. A second email threatened a handful of public schools, the Bureau of Motor Vehicles and Ohio License Bureau Southside, according to authorities.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and local police are investigating who sent the emails.
Springfield has been a flashpoint in a national controversy caused by false rumors of Haitian migrants stealing and eating people’s pets in the community, brought to further prominence by Trump and his running mate, Sen. JD Vance, R-Ohio.
“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs,” Trump said during Tuesday’s debate. “They’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”
Vance continued his focus on Springfield on Friday, taking aim at the immigrant population and Harris in a post on X.
“In Springfield, Ohio, there has been a massive rise in communicable diseases, rent prices, car insurance rates, and crime,” Vance wrote. “This what happens when you drop 20,000 people into a small community. Kamala Harris’s immigration policy aims to do this to every town in our country.”
The mayor of Springfield said another bomb threat on Thursday, that prompted the evacuation of several buildings “used hateful language towards immigrants and Haitians in our community.”
City officials and police repeatedly said there is no credible information to support the claims about migrants.
In response to Thursday’s evacuations, the Trump campaign released a statement, condemning the threats and called on the person making the threats to “be held accountable to the fullest extent of the law.”
It’s unclear if the latest round of threats is connected to the unproven national claims about immigrants in Springfield.
