During the presidential debate a few weeks ago, Donald Trump had a meltdown about Haitian immigrants and Haitian-Americans living in Ohio. He amplified, on a global stage, that Haitians were stealing pets and eating cats and dogs. This was always a lie. It was thoroughly debunked by local and national journalists who followed up on a handful of “reports” of missing cats. When confronted with the thorough debunking, JD Vance admitted that he “created” the racist lie for attention. None of that has stopped Vance and Trump from continuing to amplify the lies and encourage their cult members to attack and target the Haitian-American community. And now the Haitian-American community is fighting back.

The leader of the nonprofit Haitian Bridge Alliance filed charges against former president Donald Trump and his running mate, JD Vance, for the chaos that ensued from their uncorroborated statements about immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, eating pets, according to the Cleveland law firm representing the agency. The Chandra Law Firm says the nonprofit used a state statute allowing private citizens to “file an affidavit charging the offense committed.”

The following charges were filed: Disrupting public service — by causing widespread bomb and other threats that resulted in massive disruptions to the public services in Springfield, Ohio; Making false alarms — by knowingly causing alarm in the Springfield community by continuing to repeat lies that state and local officials have said were false; Committing telecommunications harassment — by spreading claims they know to be false during the presidential debate, campaign rallies, nationally televised interviews, and social media; Committing aggravated menacing in violation — by knowingly making intimidating statements with the intent to abuse, threaten, or harass the recipients, including Trump’s threat to deport immigrants who are here legally to Venezuela, a land they have never known;

Committing aggravated menacing — by knowingly causing others to falsely believe that members of Springfield’s Haitian community would cause serious physical harm to the person or property of others in Springfield; and: Violating the prohibition against complicity — by conspiring with one another and spreading vicious lies that caused innocent parties to be parties to their various crimes.

The charges were filed in Clark County Municipal Court. Through the filing, the nonprofit asks the court to affirm probable cause and to issue arrest warrants. The court must have a hearing before rejecting the affidavit as part of the legal process. The law firm said the charges “stem from the impact of Trump’s and Vance’s baseless fearmongering that that legal Haitian immigrants to the Ohio town are eating their neighbor’s pets.”

“The Haitian community is suffering in fear because of Trump and Vance’s relentless, irresponsible, false alarms, and public services have been disrupted. Trump and Vance must be held accountable to the rule of law. Anyone else who wreaked havoc the way they did would have been arrested by now,” lead counsel Subodh Chandra said. “There’s nothing special about Trump and Vance that entitles them to get away with what they’ve done and are doing. They think they’re above the law. They’re not.”

[From Cleveland News 5]

I genuinely hope that there’s extensive follow-through by law enforcement and the legal system. The Haitian community is being explicitly targeted with harassment, violent threats and bomb threats. The Haitian-Americans in Ohio are hard-working folks who simply want to live, work and send their kids to school. There should be larger, national repercussions for what Trump and Vance have done.

Photos courtesy of Avalon Red, Cover Images.