COLUMBUS, Ohio – For the second day in a row, officials have evacuated students from Springfield, Ohio, elementary schools in response to bomb threats.
The Springfield city manager’s office confirmed Friday that the schools closed because of bomb threats, as they and other buildings throughout Clark County did Thursday in response to similar threats.
The evacuations come in the wake of a long list of Republican politicians spotlighting an influx of an estimated 15,000 to 20,000 Haitian immigrants to the town of about 60,000 as of the 2020 census. Many of those politicians, including former President Donald Trump and his current vice-presidential candidate JD Vance, have echoed claims – unsubstantiated, rejected by city officials, and deemed racist and untrue by some of Springfield’s Haitian immigrants and natives alike – that some immigrants have been stealing and eating people’s house pets. The city’s mayor this week blamed Republicans for inciting the bomb threats.
A release from the Springfield City School District states that “based on information received” from police, Perrin Woods and Snowhill elementary students were evacuated Friday. Additionally, Roosevelt Middle School was closed before the school day started, also due to information forwarded by local police.
Springfield Police declined to provide further information but specified that the threats Friday were separate from those received one day prior. On Thursday, city hall, courts, BMV offices, a health department office, and another elementary school were evacuated in response to a bomb threat.
The city manager’s office later confirmed that the closures were spurred by another threat.
Springfield Mayor Rob Rue, in an interview with ABC6 in Columbus, explicitly tied the bomb threats to the anti-immigration rhetoric from Republican politicians. He said the emailed threat involved “enough” negative language toward immigrants and Haitians to warrant concern.
“All these federal politicians that have negatively spun our city, they need to know they’re hurting our city, and it was their words that did it,” he said.
Cleveland.com and The Plain Dealer reached out to Rue’s office for comment and a copy of the emailed threat.
The bomb threats have not deterred the anti-immigration rhetoric from Republicans.
On Friday morning, Lt. Gov. Jon Husted posted a photo of geese on social media with a tongue-in-cheek caption stating “Most Americans agree that these migrants should be deported.” Vance, also on social media, blamed Haitians for a “massive rise in communicable diseases, rent prices, car insurance rates and crime.” Trump, on social media, stated that “Ohio is being inundated with Illegal Migrants, mostly from Haiti, who are taking over Towns and Villages at a level and rate never seen before.”
