Who is Ohio woman, who killed cat and led to conspiracy theories? – Firstpost

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The first meeting between Vice President Kamala Harris and former President Donald Trump on Tuesday featured some sharp comments.

Trump attacked Harris by alleging that immigrants are eating pets in an Ohio town.

The remarks came after a disturbing case about a 27-year-old woman allegedly killing and consuming a cat in Ohio’s Canton was reported last month.

Here’s all we know about her.

The woman who killed and ate the feline

Allexis Telia Ferrell is a 27-year-old resident of Ohio’s Canton, United States.

At a housing development in Stark County, Ohio, she stomped on a cat’s head and ate it “in a residential area in front of multiple people,” according to the Canton Police Department.

After the confrontation on 13th Street SE in Canton on August 16, Ferrell was taken into custody at approximately 11 pm.

According to state court documents that Gray News obtained, she has been charged with animal cruelty, including harming animals, violating laws pertaining to companion animals, and disorderly behaviour.

Ferrell was arraigned on Monday, with a $100,000 initial bond amount. Her mugshot, which the Stark County Jail provided, showed her with an expressionless face.

Ferrell is still being held while the court system handles her case.

The ‘Haitians eating pets’ row

The case has drawn much media attention and led some right-wing accounts to associate Allexis Telia Ferrell with Haiti.

The Republican Party has made a fictitious “migrant crime wave” a major electoral issue while embracing the racist great replacement conspiracy idea. Because of that link, memes featuring Donald Trump clutching ducks and cats were produced by AI.

Issuing a statement, Trump’s campaign even said, “President Trump will deport migrants who eat pets. Kamala Harris will send them to your town next. Make your choice, America.”

The statement emphasises how controversial storylines are used by the campaign to garner support.

Prominent right lawmakers and commentators took to social media, flooding the micro-blogging platform with tweets alleging that local cats and ducks in Springfield, Ohio, were being brutalised and eaten by Haitian refugees.

Senator from Ohio and Trump’s running partner JD Vance responded to the situation, saying, “Months ago, I raised the issue of Haitian illegal immigrants draining social services and generally causing chaos all over Springfield, Ohio." He even shared a video of him previously speaking about the crisis.

“Reports now show that people have had their pets abducted and eaten by people who shouldn’t be in this country.”

Musk, the self-proclaimed free-speech absolutist, also put up an AI-generated image of a cat and a duck.

Another post, by self-proclaimed social media influencer Anthony Harris, claimed that Haitian immigrants “are in the park, grabbing up ducks by the neck, and cutting the heads off and walking off with them, and eating them.” He offered no evidence to back up his claims.

Baseless allegations

First thing up, there is no evidence that Ferrell is Haitian.

Canton, Ohio police spokesperson Dennis Garren said in an email, according to Reuters: “The suspect in this case is not a Haitian immigrant,” “She is a life long Canton resident.”

Before this, there were rumours of a neighbour’s daughter’s friend’s cat going missing. The cat was later discovered hanging off a tree from their neighbour’s home. The neighbour, a Haitian, was supposedly preparing the cat to be eaten, according to a post on Springfield Facebook group.

However, Springfield police and officials have said in response to the narrative that there are no widespread instances of Haitian immigrants stealing pets to eat them.

In a statement on Tuesday, a Springfield police spokesperson said, “In response to recent rumors alleging criminal activity by the immigrant population in our city, we wish to clarify that there have been no credible reports or specific claims of pets being harmed, injured or abused by individuals within the immigrant community.”

The Times of India quoted the police as saying they were aware of the post but that this is “not something that’s on our radar right now.”

Springfield is a relatively small town northeast of Dayton. After the Great Recession, the city had a prolonged period of economic difficulty that resulted in a decrease in population and the departure of significant businesses and stores from the area, according to Rolling Stone.

Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, are there legally and are eligible to apply for Temporary Protected Status, according to an Immigration FAQ on the city’s website, which says the total immigration population in Clark County is an estimated 12,000 to 15,000.

Conservatives’ widely circulated assertions about them being undocumented are untrue; most of them have Social Security numbers, work permits, and legal immigration status.

In interviews last month, following claims at a city commission meeting that Haitians were cooking wildlife taken from local parks, a city official said they had not been able to verify any of those reports and described them as “false” and “misleading” information amplified by social media, according to Reuters.

Haitians in the US

Some social media posts also contain a clip of Kamala Harris appearing on The View in 2021, in which she said Haitians in the US “need support, they need protection.”

In May 2021, America expanded Haitian eligibility for a humanitarian programme granting deportation relief and work permits to an estimated 150,000 Haitians already living in the US who cannot safely return to their home, Reuters reported.

Inhumane act

In the US, eating cats and dogs has long been regarded as cruel.

Robert F Kennedy Jr, a former US presidential candidate who withdrew his candidacy as an independent, came under fire in July after a picture surfaced that purported to show him eating barbecued dogs, according to Metro.co.uk.

Kennedy retreated, claiming that the animal carcass he was holding was a goat.

With inputs from agencies

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