Two hospitals in Springfield, Ohio, were sent into lockdown after bomb threats, police said Saturday, marking the fourth such case in as many days that appears linked to false claims circulating among the far right that Haitian immigrants there are eating domestic pets and wildlife.
Saturday’s threats came even after the woman who started the rumors acknowledged to NBC News that they were unfounded and publicly apologized.
Kettering Health Springfield was one of the medical facilities targeted, with officials later saying they found nothing suspicious during a search. Another hospital, Mercy Health’s Springfield regional medical center, received a similar threat.
A spokesperson with Mercy Health said the hospital has continued to operate and thanked Springfield police as well as hospital staff “for their swift, efficient and caring response”.
On Friday, a Springfield woman, Erika Lee, apologized for rumors about Haitian immigrants eating pets that resulted from a post she wrote on Facebook claiming that the friend of a neighbor’s daughter lost her cat – and then found the animal strung up outside the home of a Haitian family.
Lee now says she had no firsthand knowledge of the claim. The neighbor referenced in the post, Kimberly Newton, revealed that she also had heard the story from an acquaintance and not her daughter.
Ned Hamson's Second Line View of the News 
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