The far-right Proud Boys descended on Springfield, Ohio, as Donald Trump made good on his promise to visit the city amid rumors of pet eating.
Members of the group were spotted marching after reports that the KKK had distributed recruitment leaflets in a city hit by a wave of bomb threats targeting schools and colleges.
About 20 members of the Proud Boys, some carrying flags and placards, were seen in video footage and photos posted on social media.
Plans for a visit by the ex-president are still in full swing, according to his campaign team, after he repeatedly made debunked claims that the town’s large Haitian population killed and ate their neighbors’ pets.
GOP leaders angrily dismissed the stories as “nonsense” and told him to stay away from them.
Members of the far-right group Proud Boys gathered in Springfield, Ohio
Members of the Proud Boys carried flags and placards
“Springfield, Ohio, is caught in a political maelstrom and it’s gotten a little out of hand,” said Mayor Rob Rue.
“We’ve had bomb threats for the last two days. We’ve had personal threats for the last two days, and it’s increasing because the national stage is whipping this up.”
The FBI is investigating after the city’s Wittenberg University received a shooting incident on Saturday and a bomb threat on Sunday.
One school was closed and two were evacuated on Friday, while Springfield officials said “multiple institutions” were targeted by a bomb threat on Thursday.
Trump stirred tension in Tuesday’s presidential debate with Kamala Harris when he repeated rumors that migrants in the city are “eating the dogs.”
“The people who came in. They eat the cats. They eat – they eat the pets of the people who live there. And this is what is happening in our country.”
His vice presidential pick, J.D. Vance, had previously made similar claims. The Ohio senator defended his views on NBC’s Meet the Press on Sunday.
“If I have to create stories so that the American media actually pays attention to the suffering of the American people, then I’m going to do it,” he told host Dana Bash.
“It comes from personal stories of my constituents. I say we create a story, which means we create the American media that focuses on it.”
Police and city officials in the city stress that there have been no credible reports of migrants harming pets.
Ohio’s Republican Governor Mike DeWine called the claims “nonsense” on ABC’s This Week program.
“This discussion just has to stop,” he said.
Donald Trump sent the debunked claims around the world during his presidential debate with Kamala Harris on Tuesday, when he said: ‘The people who came in. They’re eating the cats.’
A note on the door of Fulton Elementary School telling parents where to pick up their children after a bomb threat
‘Look, there’s a lot of nonsense on the internet. This was a piece of nonsense that just wasn’t true, there’s no evidence for it at all.
“Any comment about that, I think, is hurtful and not helpful to the city of Springfield and the residents of Springfield.
“We should be focusing on progress, not on the fact that dogs and cats are being eaten. That’s just ridiculous.”
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Proud Boys, which are banned in Canada as a terrorist organization, currently have five chapters in Ohio.
They have presided over some of the most violent political confrontations in recent years, with five of their leaders facing charges of seditious conspiracy over the January 6 riots.
Former leader Henry Enrique Tarrio was sentenced to 22 years in prison for his role in the violence.
Donald Trump has distanced himself from the group since calling on them to “step back and stand by” during his 2020 presidential debate with Joe Biden.
Their arrival comes a month after about a dozen masked members of the neo-Nazi group Blood Tribe held an “anti-Haitian immigration march” in the city, when rumors first surfaced.
Members of the armed neo-Nazi group Blood Tribe, pictured in Florida, held a march in Springfield last month and helped spread the pet-eating rumors online
The group spread the rumors online, and on August 27, member Drake Berentz spoke at a Springfield City Council meeting, warning that “crime and brutality will only increase with every Haitian you bring in.”
He was kicked out of the meeting, but group leader Christopher Pohlhaus was euphoric after Trump brought up the rumors during his presidential debate.
“The president is talking about it now,” one of its members wrote on the social media platform Gab.
“This is what real power looks like.”