Former President Donald Trump and his running mate have prompted the false claims that migrants are eating people’s pets in the Ohio city, which officials have denied.

At least 33 bomb threats have been made in Springfield, Ohio, since false claims — which were pushed by former President Donald Trump and his running mate — surfaced about Haitian migrants’ eating people’s pets, the governor said.

All of the threats have been determined to be hoaxes. Some targeted Springfield schools, including elementary school campuses, Gov. Mike DeWine said Tuesday at a news conference after he met with city officials.

“Our children deserve to be in school. Parents deserve to feel that their children are being educated and that their children are safe,” DeWine said.

  • sharkfinsoup@lemmy.ml
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    2 days ago

    If you read the article, they mention how some of the threats are coming from other countries. So while some of it may be dumbass racists thinking they’re achieving something, a good amount of it just comes down to foreign powers sowing discord and election interference. Calling in a bomb threat related to a politically divisive topic is a pretty low effort thing to do if you’re a rival superpower.

    • ayyy@sh.itjust.works
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      2 days ago

      There’s no way to know that for sure. It takes less than 5 minutes to buy a VoIP number in another country.

      • sharkfinsoup@lemmy.ml
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        1 day ago

        True and I certainly don’t doubt that there are plenty of idiots at home who think that calling in a bomb threat to a school will accomplish something. But it’s also very easy to call in a bomb threat and for a politically charged situation like this, it would be a no brainer for a foreign state actor to take advantage of the situation. It costs them next to nothing and further fuels the political divide within.

        If there’s dozens of bomb threats being made to the same schools, I would more surprised to find out that rival superpowers aren’t behind at least one or two.