09/18/2024
Ohio Woman Says She Regrets Sharing False Rumor About Haitians on Facebook
The woman has since deleted the post claiming that one of her Haitian neighbors might have taken a neighbor’s cat. But it took on a life of its own.
By Kevin Williams
Sept. 17, 2024, 6:35 p.m. ET
When Erika Lee wrote the Facebook post, it was just another summer day in Springfield, Ohio.
It was before the city got dragged into the presidential race, before former President Donald J. Trump stoked debunked rumors that Haitian immigrants were abducting and eating household pets, and before an ensuing wave of bomb threats upended life in the town of about 60,000.
Ms. Lee had heard that a neighbor’s cat had disappeared and that one of their Haitian neighbors might have taken the animal, so she posted the rumor on Facebook. But then she decided to go back to her neighbor.
“I asked her for proof,” Ms. Lee said.
It turned out the cat that had supposedly gone missing wasn’t the cat of a neighbor’s daughter, as Ms. Lee had posted. And if there were such a cat, it belonged to a friend of a friend of the neighbor’s daughter, Ms. Lee learned.
“And at that point, we are playing the game of telephone,” said Ms. Lee, who said she had no information herself about any abducted cats.
She has since deleted the post, but it had taken on a life of its own — eventually finding its way into the right-wing echo chamber, where it was picked up by Mr. Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, who grew up in Middletown, about 40 miles from Springfield.
Then, last week, during the presidential debate with Vice President Kamala Harris, Mr. Trump repeated the rumor, using it to drag Springfield into the national debate over immigration. “In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs,” he said. “The people that came in. They’re eating the cats. They’re eating — they’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”
Ms. Lee, 35, says she now regrets writing the Facebook post and feels bad about the racially charged fallout that has consumed the city for days.
“I was not raised with hate,” Ms. Lee said, speaking through sobs. “My whole family is biracial. I never wanted to cause problems for anyone.”
The local authorities had already debunked the rumors, saying that there had been no reports that pets were being stolen and eaten in Springfield. But in the days that followed Mr. Trump’s debate remark, anti-immigrant rhetoric picked up toward Haitians and the city, which has been hit with a string of bomb threats toward city offices, schools, hospitals and other locations.
Rumors that a cat had been eaten also appeared to be linked to a woman who was arrested last month in Canton, Ohio, about two hours east of Springfield. The woman, Allexis Telia Ferrell, had been seen outside next to a dead cat, and a police report said she was found with blood on her “feet, hands, and fur on her lips.”
Ms. Ferrell, 27, who lives in Canton, pleaded not guilty to charges of cruelty to companion animals, and a court hearing has been scheduled for next month to determine her competency to stand trial. Though many posts claimed Ms. Ferrell was from Haiti, birth records show that she was born in Ohio in 1997.
Even as Springfield officials repeatedly refuted the rumor, some in the city were embracing it. “I know it’s true — there were all kinds of cats in my neighborhood a few months ago, and now there are none,” said Floyd Walden, 58, and a lifelong Springfield resident. “They need to all be sent back to Haiti, it is as simple as that,” he added, referring to migrants.
Estimates of the number of Haitians who have arrived in Springfield in recent years range from 12,000 to 20,000, many of them drawn to the plentiful jobs and affordable housing. While employers have welcomed the new workers, the influx has strained some local services and stirred anxiety and tension, especially after an 11-year-old died last year when his school bus was struck by a car driven by a Haitian immigrant.
The attention from Mr. Trump and Mr. Vance has heightened those tensions dramatically.
Mary Clovis, a Haitian immigrant, went to Mass on Sunday at a Catholic church that offers a weekly service in Haitian Creole. The number of worshipers was about half that in a typical week, she said.
On the streets, Ms. Clovis says she has been harassed. “Now white children come up to me and say, ‘Meow, meow — you eat cats,’” she said. “I am scared. I don’t feel safe.”
Ms. Lee said she felt for the Haitians and had never wanted to cause them pain. She moved to Springfield from California four years ago, about the time the Haitians started arriving in the community in notable numbers.
The turmoil of the last several days has left her sleepless, she said.
“I live next to Haitians — I have no issues with them,” Ms. Lee said. “With all this chaos that has gone on, I hate myself for making that post.”
The woman has since deleted the post claiming that one of her Haitian neighbors might have taken a neighbor’s cat. But it took on a life of its own.
