Arrest of a Canton, Ohio, woman unrelated to baseless claims about Haitian immigrants in Springfield

Former President Donald Trump falsely said during his Sept. 10 debate with Vice President Kamala Harris that immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, are eating cats and dogs.

As PolitiFact has reported, city officials confirm there is no evidence of that.

Now some social media users are sharing police footage of a woman being arrested for animal cruelty as proof that Trump was right and the fact-checkers are wrong.

"An illegal woman from Haiti k*lled and ate a cat in front of neighbors in Springfield, Ohio," one user captioned an Instagram video. The post included body camera footage of an officer arresting a woman after neighbors said she killed and ate a cat in a residential area.

Multiple social media accounts shared the footage of the woman, claiming she might be an immigrant.

These posts were flagged as part of Meta’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed. (Read more about our partnership with Meta, which owns Facebook, Instagram and Threads.)

Featured Fact-check

Bernie Moreno

stated on August 20, 2024 in a campaign ad

U.S. Sen. Sherrod Brown voted to “give illegals taxpayer funded stimulus checks, health care, even Social Security."

But the woman in the video is not a Haitian immigrant and the incident did not occur in Springfield, Ohio. 

(Screengrab from Instagram.)

Alexis Ferrell of Canton, Ohio, was arrested Aug. 26 on animal cruelty and disorderly conduct charges after Canton police said she tortured, killed and ate a cat in front of people in Canton. Ferrell was born in Ohio and graduated from an Ohio high school in 2015, The Associated Press reported.

Canton lies about 175 miles northeast of Springfield.

Karen Graves, a Springfield spokesperson, told PolitiFact there are "no credible reports or specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community." Springfield police told a local news outlet the agency knew of no such reports about pets.

We rate the claim that a Haitian woman was arrested in Springfield, Ohio, for eating a cat Pants on Fire!