Republican Springfield Mayor Rob Rue blamed politicians after multiple city agencies received bomb threats Thursday.
The southwestern Ohio city has been in the spotlight since Tuesday’s presidential debate when former President Donald Trump alleged that Haitian migrants were killing and eating its residents’ pets.
Officials said the bomb threats targeted entities like City Hall, the Clark County courthouse, and two schools and included “hateful language towards immigrants and Haitians in our community.”
“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,” Mayor Rob Rue said Thursday.
“Pets are safe in our community and it’s unfortunate that there was a spotlight put on a story that was validated that was not true at all.”
Rue did not name Trump or his running mate JD Vance when referring to politicians spreading the false claims.
“When a federal politician has the stage, and they don’t take the opportunity to build up the community, instead of inadvertently not understanding what their words are, what they’re going to do to the community, it can really hurt the community like it’s hurting ours,” the mayor added.
“We’ve been punched in a way we should not have been punched.”
