Before Trump, neo-Nazis pushed false claims about Haitians as part of hate campaign

The day after the presidential debate at which former President Donald Trump spread a false story about Haitian immigrants eating pets in Springfield, Ohio, Christopher Pohlhaus, leader of the national neo-Nazi group Blood Tribe, took to his Telegram channel to take credit.

Pohlhaus, a Marine-turned-tattoo artist known as “Hammer” to his hundreds of followers, wrote Blood Tribe had “pushed Springfield into the public consciousness.”

Members of his hate group agreed. “The president is talking about it now,” a member wrote on Gab, a Twitter-like service popular with extremists. “This is what real power looks like.”

Trump’s line at the debate was the culmination of a weekslong rumor mill that appears to have at least been amplified by Blood Tribe, which has sought to demonize the local Haitian community online and in person. The debate drew more than 67 million viewers, according to the media analytics company Nielsen.

As with most rumors, the beginning of the baseless claims about Haitians eating pets in Springfield is hard to pinpoint, but Blood Tribe undoubtedly helped spread it.

Starting in late June, people in local Facebook groups had been posting about Haitian children chasing ducks and geese. Around the same time, conservative media was characterizing Springfield as being “flooded” with Haitian immigrants. Over the next few weeks, the Facebook complaints, still without evidence, got darker, with anonymous posters claiming they were hearing that ducks and geese were going missing, perhaps even being eaten by their immigrant neighbors.

The Springfield Police Division told NBC News that “there have been no credible reports or specific claims of pets being harmed, injured, or abused by individuals within the