Claim:
Police audio confirmed reports of Haitians hunting geese in Springfield, Ohio, in 2024.
Rating:
False ( About this rating? )
Context:
A call to the Clark County Sheriff's Department regarding four alleged Haitians carrying dead geese would not be confirmation of "Haitian goose-hunting," even if verified. Regardless, authorities could not verify the complaint's claims.
The claim promoted by 2024 Republican U.S. presidential candidate Donald Trump on Sep. 10, 2024, that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, were stealing and eating pets is entirely unfounded , as Snopes previously reported.
Later reporting revealed it was based on third-hand information posted to a private Facebook group by someone who later admitted , "I'm not sure I'm the most credible source."
That Facebook post, shared by Trump's vice-presidential running mate JD Vance, combined pet-based allegations with claims that the Haitian community was "hunting" waterfowl in a public parks.
A viral video of podcaster and Springfield resident Anthony Harris speaking at an Aug. 27, 2024, Springfield City Commission meeting made reference to this as well. "They're in the park, grabbing up ducks by the neck and cutting their heads off and eating them," Harris claimed, among other things.
Following Snopes' original fact-check of these claims, conservative outlet The Federalist published what it described as "police audio" that "confirm[ed] Haitian goose-hunting in Ohio."
While this audio is a legitimate recording of a complaint made to the Clark County Sheriff's Department, it is — like any single report made to law enforcement — not a "confirmation" of anything.
The complaint itself did not include a claim of someone witnessing any "hunting," and the sheriff's department, as well as the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, were unable to verify the claim or locate the individuals or their alleged connection to the Haitian community.
In this article, Snopes reviews reporting that has uncovered the backstory behind this police complaint and explains why this purported evidence falls significantly short of verifying the inflammatory claims that have led to multiple bomb threats against schools and public buildings in Springfield, Ohio.
The Police Report
The call to police on which The Federalist reported was placed on Aug. 26, 2024 — a day before the meeting in which the viral Anthony Harris video originated. The incident involved a man later identified by journalist Steven Monacelli as someone identifying himself as "Toby", who reported seeing four Haitians returning to the street from a bike path with each of them holding a goose:
CCC: Clark County Communications?
Toby: Yes ma'am. I got a question. This is a non-emergency line, correct?
CCC: Yes it is.
Toby: Okay. I'm sitting here, I'm riding on the trail, going to my orientation for my job today, and I see a group of Haitian people. There was about four of them. They all had geese in their hands. They got away. I couldn't make out the first three of the license plate [...] it was a gray Toyota Tacoma they took off on. There was about four of them. There was two men, two women.
The reported location was near the entrance to a bike path by a river that connects, two miles to the west, with Snyder Park, a location referenced in an early viral posts about Haitians:
Monacelli independently acquired audio and information regarding this complaint, which The Federalist redacted in its own reporting, allowing him enough information to identify and speak with the caller.
In an interview with Monacelli, Toby said he filed the report because he said it was illegal to hunt geese without a permit. "I was just reporting [a potential crime] like anyone else," he told Monacelli.
The Clark County Sheriff's Department told Monacelli that it "had no other information to provide on this call or possible outcomes as this was our only record of the incident."
Local news outlet The Springfield News-Sun reported that law enforcement eventually forwarded the complaint to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources (ODNR), which could not substantiate the claim.
At a county commission's meeting on Sep. 10, 2024, the News-Sun reported , Clark County Commissioner Sasha Rittenhouse said that, "No videos have surfaced, no pictures have surfaced, no dead geese have surfaced; there's nothing to substantiate that it's happening."
[Clark County Commissioner Sasha] Rittenhouse said she rode with an ODNR staffer last Thursday to look into some claims about Haitian immigrants stealing and eating geese and ducks, and learned that nothing came out of the call, with there being no evidence.
At the same meeting , Clark County Sheriff's Office Major Scott Cultice said that "he and another employee at the Clark County Combined Dispatch Center went through 11 months of call records Tuesday to check for reports on these matters, and the Aug. 26 call was the only one he was able to verify that had been made."
What The Police Report Does Not Prove
Though viral videos reference multiple people placing calls about this behavior, Toby's report is the only record of anything approaching the allegations leveled against the Haitian community. Taken at face value, Toby's testimony would provide first-hand evidence only of four individuals carrying dead geese.
The complaint, even if verified, would not provide evidence of "hunting," though. That is a conclusion Toby arrived at on his own. Further, the complaint, even if verified, would not provide evidence of Haitian immigrants being involved. That, too, is a conclusion arrived at by Toby.
The evidence provided by Toby is also a far cry from the rumors that formed on Facebook and spread thanks to amplification by right-wing influencers, Vance, and Trump that Haitians were [butchering] dogs and "doing it at Snyder Park with the ducks & geese." The person who wrote the original Facebook post referencing cat killing said that this Snyder Park information came from "Rangers & police."
It is possible, then, that this portion of the rumor stems in some way from the ODNR ride-along described by Rittenhouse at the Sept. 10 meeting. If that is the case, it would not amount to independent confirmation of the claim, but would instead be a distortion of this same complaint by Toby that led the ODNR — "rangers," perhaps — to look into the matter.
The Bottom Line
The Federalist , Trump, Vance, and an army of other pro-Trump social media influencers, are arguing that this single complaint regarding what may have been a hunting-permit violation "confirms" allegations of "Haitian goose-hunting." Even if everything Toby witnessed was factual, his testimony would not confirm "goose-hunting." It would confirm only that four people were carrying four dead geese away from a river.
Because this unsubstantiated report would not confirm these charges as reported, and because one person's allegations to a non-emergency police line would not on its own constitute evidence of anything, the claim that Toby's report to police "confirms" Haitian geese hunting in Springfield is "False."
Sources:
"County: No Evidence of August Claim That Haitians Took Geese at Springfield Park." Springfield-News-Sun, https://www.springfieldnewssun.com/news/county-no-evidence-of-august-claim-that-haitians-took-geese-at-springfield-park/NFRGJNURHREGHB32HBC6UKZJWQ/ . Accessed 13 Sept. 2024.
D'Angelo, Alec. "The Origins of Trump's Ohio Pets Conspiracy." New Lines Magazine, 11 Sept. 2024, https://newlinesmag.com/spotlight/the-origins-of-trumps-ohio-pets-conspiracy/ .
Justice, Tristan. "Exclusive: Police Audio Confirms Haitian Goose Hunting In Ohio." The Federalist, 11 Sept. 2024, https://thefederalist.com/2024/09/10/exclusive-police-audio-report-confirm-haitian-goose-hunting-in-ohio-they-all-had-geese-in-their-hands/ .
Kasprak, Alex. "No Evidence Haitian Immigrants Are Eating Ducks, Geese or Pets in Springfield, Ohio." Snopes, 10 Sept. 2024, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/cats-ducks-haitians-springfield/ .
---. "Video Footage and News Headlines Don't Document Haitian Immigrant Eating Cat in Springfield, Ohio." Snopes, 12 Sept. 2024, https://www.snopes.com//fact-check/video-headlines-immigrants-eating-cats/ .
NewsGuard. Triple Hearsay: Original Sources of the Claim That Haitians Eat Pets in Ohio Admit No First-Hand Knowledge. https://www.newsguardrealitycheck.com/p/origins-haitians-eating-pets-claim . Accessed 13 Sept. 2024.
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