An Ohio woman whose police report was used to power racist rumors about Haitian immigrants stealing and eating neighborhood cats has admitted her pet was found in her home, just days after she reported her Haitian neighbors to local police.
Baseless reports about missing pets in Springfield, Ohio gained national attention after Donald Trump parroted the rumor during his debate against Vice President Kamala Harris last Tuesday.
“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs,” he said. “The people that came in, they’re eating the cats. They’re eating the pets of the people that live there. And this is what’s happening in this country.”
Despite the former president receiving an instant fact-check from moderator David Muir, his unfounded anti-immigrant rhetoric continued to circulate online and in the media, backed by several of his campaign surrogates. Trump’s running mate, Sen. JD Vance (R-Ohio), doubled down on the misinformation during multiple media appearances this past weekend.
But the day before the Trump-Harris debate, Springfield City Manager Bryan Heck had explicitly debunked the rumor to a Vance aide, according to a Thursday report from the Wall Street Journal.
When the Journal approached Vance’s team about the cat-eating claim, a spokesperson provided a police report from a Springfield resident who accused her Haitian neighbors of being responsible for her cat going missing in late August.
But when the outlet contacted the person who filed the report, Anna Kilgore, she told the paper that her pet, Miss Sassy, was found in her basement days after she contacted the police.
Kilgore, who was wearing a Trump shirt and hat when the Journal spoke with her, told reporters that she had since apologized to her Haitian neighbors.
While Miss Sassy was not in any harm, the same now can’t be said about Springfield and the city’s Haitian community.
The morning after the debate, bomb threats forced multiple schools, City Hall and the local Ohio Bureau of Motor Vehicles office to be evacuated.
In the past week, the city has logged an astounding 36 bomb threats total and state police were brought in to protect local schools, according to the Journal.
Another Springfield resident, whose Facebook post began the pet-eating rumor that Kilgore’s police report ostensibly proved, has apologized for inciting a backlash against her city.
Speaking to NBC News on Friday, Erika Lee admitted she had no firsthand knowledge of any pets being kidnapped by people from Springfield’s Haitian immigrant community, let alone being eaten.
“It just exploded into something I didn’t mean to happen,” she told the outlet.