Ohio police have released chilling footage of the incident that could be at the root of Donald Trump’s extraordinary claim that Haitian immigrants are killing and eating their neighbours’ pets.
The claim electrified Tuesday’s presidential debate when the Republican candidate spread rumors that new Haitian arrivals in the city of Springfield had been feasting on his pets.
Police have now released body camera video of the only person known to have eaten a cat in the state recently: an American-born woman in a town 170 miles away.
Allexis Ferrell, 27, was found with “fur on her lips and blood on her hands” when police were called by horrified neighbors in the city of Canton on August 16.
“Officers were able to determine that Allexis had crushed the cat’s head with her foot and then began eating it,” they wrote in their report.
Allexis Ferrell, 27, was found with “fur on her lips and blood on her hands” when horrified neighbors called police in the city of Canton, Ohio, on August 16.
Ferrell is being held in the Stark County Jail on one count of cruelty to companion animals, a fifth-degree felony. She has pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.
The bizarre footage begins seconds after police arrived to find a “female crouching over a cat that appeared to have its head crushed and the female with her hands on top of it.”
Officers confronted Ferrell and ordered her to put her hands behind her back before one of them commented: “Does anyone have rubber gloves? She’s covered in blood.”
She doesn’t respond when asked for her address and read her Miranda rights, before the disgusted officer warns a colleague to place a blanket in the back seat of his patrol car.
“Smile at me. Do this,” he says, holding a camera. “Did you eat that cat? Did you eat it?”
She bares her teeth for the photo and shakes her head slightly, but says nothing.
“Why did you kill him?” he asks.
A Springfield resident claimed last month that Haitian immigrants were decapitating ducks in public parks and eating them last month.
“I don’t know,” she says quietly.
“Get in there. It’s ridiculous,” he says as he pushes her into the car.
The first reports of pets being eaten in Springfield were raised at a city commission meeting on July 30.
Angry local residents used the forum to express their feelings about the 15,000 Haitians who have arrived under Temporary Protected Status since 2020.
“I really challenge them to go out and do something,” one angry resident said at the meeting.
“These Haitians crash into garbage cans, they crash into buildings, they overturn cars in the middle of the streets.”
“They’re in the park, they grab the ducks by the neck, cut off their heads and take them away. They’re eating them.”
An anonymous user on a Springfield residents’ Facebook group claimed that their “neighbor’s daughter’s friend” had lost her cat.
‘One day, she came home from work, and as soon as she got out of the car, she looked over at a neighbor’s house, where Haitians live, and saw her cat hanging from a branch, like someone cutting up a deer to butcher it, and they were cutting it up to eat,’ she explained.
Police and city officials have been at pains to insist there have been no credible reports of any immigrants harming any pets.
But the rumors were amplified by Trump’s running mate, JD Vance, before the former president himself used them in his debate with Kamala Harris.
“They’re eating the dogs in Springfield,” he said. “The people who came here are eating the cats.”
‘They’re eating… they’re eating the pets of the people who live there.
“And this is what is happening in our country.”
Told by ABC moderator David Muir that there had been no credible reports to authorities, the former president insisted he had “seen people on television.”
“People on TV say they took my dog and used it as food,” he added.
A Springfield police spokesman was among those who denied the claims.
“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,” she said Tuesday.
Officers confronted Ferrell and ordered her to put her hands behind her back before one of them commented: “Does anyone have rubber gloves? She’s covered in blood.”
Horrified witnesses had called police for a welfare check in the 1100 block of Southeast 13th Street in Canton shortly before 11 p.m. on Aug. 16.
Vice president dismissed Trump’s claims that migrants ate pets during debate as ‘unbelievable and extreme’
The Canton Police Department footage continues with an officer turning toward a group of onlookers after Ferrell is placed in the patrol car.
“Have you seen all this?” he asks.
“No, we arrived and she was lying there with…” one answers.
“Did you see her eating it?” he asks.
“Yes,” says one, “it was disgusting,” adds another.
He said that with blood on his shoes he stomped on her. He stomped on her head.
“Well, you don’t kill a cat and go to the hospital; you go to jail,” the officer said.
Social media has been flooded with AI-generated images of Donald Trump protecting animals since his remarks at Tuesday’s presidential debate.
“Could you call the SPCA and see if they’ll come pick up this cat?” he murmurs into the radio. “He’s dead.”
Ferrell is being held in the Stark County Jail on one count of cruelty to companion animals, a fifth-degree felony.
He graduated from Canton McKinley High School in 2015 and has a lengthy criminal history, with previous charges including cocaine possession, receiving stolen property and child endangerment.
“The suspect in this case is not a Haitian immigrant,” Canton police spokesman Dennis Garren said. “She has lived in Canton her entire life.”
Bail has been set at $100,000 and he is scheduled to face a competency hearing before Stark County Common Pleas Judge Frank G. Forchione on Oct. 15.
She pleaded not guilty by reason of insanity.
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