The small city of Springfield, Ohio, became a surprise focus of Tuesday night’s debate when Donald Trump claimed that Haitian immigrants were killing and eating residents’ pets.
“In Springfield, they’re eating the dogs,” he said. “The people that came in, they’re eating the cats. They’re eating, they’re eating the pets of the people that live there.”
The origins of the rumour are believed to be a Facebook post, picked up by the Springfield News-Sun newspaper.
Trump claimed that “they’re eating the dogs, the people that came in, they’re eating the cats”
In the post on the now-private page, a person is said to have claimed that a neighbour’s daughter’s friend lost her cat, and later found it hanging from a branch near a Haitian neighbour’s house. Springfield police said they have not received any reports of missing pets, and city officials