COLUMBUS, Ohio – The city of Springfield, Ohio, on Thursday evacuated “multiple facilities,” including city hall and Fulton Elementary School, in response to a bomb threat emailed to city officials and local media, police say.
The threats came at 8:24 a.m. on Thursday, according to Lt. Travis Baader of the Springfield Police Department. He confirmed that city hall and the school had been evacuated but declined to say whether any other facilities had been evacuated.
Two deputy registrars and one driver examination station in town were closed due to a bomb threat as well, according to Ohio BMV spokeswoman Lindsey Bohrer.
While local Department of Job and Family Services didn’t receive a bomb threat, they closed out of “an abundance of caution” given the threats received elsewhere, according to Michael Cooper, a spokesman for Clark County.
The reason behind the threats was unclear. They come in a week in which Springfield has been under a national spotlight.
This week, a long line of top Republican officials including presidential candidate Donald Trump, vice presidential candidate JD Vance, Attorney General Dave Yost, and several Republican congressmen have echoed an unsubstantiated and refuted claim that Haitian immigrants in town have been eating cats, dogs, and geese. The city (population 58,000 as of 2020) has seen an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 legal Haitian immigrants move to town in the last several years as Haiti has grown increasingly violent and unstable. Republicans have since depicted the town as a caricature of an out-of-control immigration system.
The Springfield News-Sun, citing city Mayor Rob Rue, reports that the bomb threat came from a person claiming to be from Springfield and mentioned frustration with the city related to Haitian immigration issues. A city official didn’t respond to an inquiry.