Proud Boys descend on Springfield as debate over 'migrants eating pets' in the small Ohio town spirals out of control
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The far-right Proud Boys descended on Springfield, Ohio, as Donald Trump doubled down on his promise to visit the town at the center of pet-eating rumors.
Members of the group were spotted marching amid reports that the KKK has been distributing recruitment leaflets in a town that has been hit by a wave of bomb threats directed at schools and colleges.
Around 20 members of the Proud Boys, some seen carrying flags and placards, were seen in video and photos posted to social media.
Plans for a visit by the ex-president are still taking shape, his campaign team insists, after he repeated debunked claims that the town's large Haitian population was killing and eating their neighbors' pets.
GOP leaders have angrily dismissed the stories as 'garbage' and told him to stay away.
Members of far-right group the Proud Boys gathered in Springfield, Ohio
Members of the Proud Boys carried flags and placards
'Springfield, Ohio, is caught in a political vortex, and it is a bit out of control,' said Mayor Rob Rue.
'We've had bomb threats the last two days. We've had personal threats the last two days, and it's increasing, because the national stage is swirling this up.'
The FBI is investigating after the town's Wittenberg University received a shooting threat on Saturday and a bomb threat on Sunday.
One school was closed and two were evacuated on Friday, and Springfield officials said that 'multiple facilities' were targeted by a bomb threat on Thursday.
Trump electrified the presidential debate against Kamala Harris on Tuesday when he repeated rumors that migrants in the town were 'eating the dogs'.
'The people that came in. They're eating the cats. They're eating - they're eating the pets of the people that live there. And this is what's happening in our country.'
His pick for vice president, JD Vance, had previously made the same claims. The Ohio Senator defended his take on Sunday's Meet the Press on NBC.
'If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then that's what I'm going to do,' he told host Dana Bash.
'It comes from firsthand accounts from my constituents. I say that we're creating a story, meaning we're creating the American media focusing on it.'
Police and city officials in the town have insisted that there have been no credible reports of any migrants harming pets.
Ohio's Republican governor, Mike DeWine, labeled the claims 'garbage' on ABC's This Week.
'This discussion just has to stop,' he said.
Donald Trump sent the debunked claims worldwide during his presidential debate with Kamala Harris on Tuesday, when he said: 'The people that came in. They're eating the cats'
A note on the door of Fulton Elementary School telling parents where to collect their children after a bomb threat
'Look, there's a lot of garbage on the internet. This was a piece of garbage that was simply not true, there's no evidence of this at all.
'Any comment about that otherwise, I think, is hurtful and is not helpful to the city of Springfield and the people of Springfield.
'We need to focus on moving forward, not dogs and cats being eaten, it's just ridiculous.'
The Proud Boys, which have been banned as a terrorist group in Canada, currently have five chapters in Ohio, according to the Southern Poverty Law Center.
They have been at the forefront of some of the most violent political confrontations in recent years, and five of its leaders were indicted on seditious conspiracy charges over the January 6 riot.
Former leader Henry Enrique Tarrio was sentenced to 22 years in prison for his role in the violence.
Donald Trump has distanced himself from the group since telling them to 'stand back and stand by' in his 2020 presidential debate with Joe Biden.
Their arrival comes a month after around a dozen masked members of the neo-Nazi group Blood Tribe held an 'anti-Haitian immigration march' in the town as the first rumors started to emerge.
Members of armed neo-Nazi group Blood Tribe, pictured in Florida, held a march in Springfield last month and helped spread the pet-eating rumors online
The group promoted the rumors online, and member Drake Berentz spoke at a Springfield City Commission meeting on August 27 to warn that 'crime and savagery will only increase with every Haitian you bring in'.
He was ejected from the meeting, but group leader Christopher Pohlhaus was euphoric after Trump brought up the rumors in his presidential debate.
'The president is talking about it now,' one of his members wrote on the social media platform Gab.
'This is what real power looks like.'
