Did a video show several Black men in Springfield, Ohio, opening a suitcase full of frogs and showing them to the camera? No, that's not true: The video appeared earlier on TikTok with a caption that said it was from a Carnival in Grenada. It likely shows a Jab Jab masquerade where greased-up performers sometimes carry around live animals. Lead Stories found no evidence this video was shot in Springfield, which has been roiled by baseless claims about Haitian immigrants eating pets.
The claim appeared in a post on X (archived here) on September 23, 2024. The caption read:
Welcome to Springfield...
Users on social media only saw this title, description and thumbnail:
(Source: X screenshot taken on Tue Sep 24 14:34:10 2024 UTC)
On-screen text reads, "Meanwhile in Springfield OHIO." The 14-second video shows a group of men and one woman standing around a suitcase. During the final seconds, they pull frogs out of the piece of luggage. Springfield was the focus of media and political attention in September 2024 because of claims about Haitian immigrants and household pets.
This claim comes after former President Donald Trump -- speaking during the September 10, 2024, presidential debate -- repeated a claim that Haitian immigrants were eating household pets in Springfield. Lead Stories has debunked multiple claims that Haitian immigrants were stealing and eating pets in Springfield, here.
A reverse image search (archived here) of a still from the X post led to this video (archived here), which was originally published on TikTok on August 14, 2024. The original on-screen text read, "Grenada Carnival 2024 🇬🇩🇬🇩." Below is a screenshot of that post:
(Source: TikTok screenshot taken on Tue Sep 24 18:12:48 2024 UTC)
Grenada Carnival, or J'ouvert, is an annual street party that marks the start of Carnival in multiple Caribbean countries. Carnival commemorates when slaves in the Caribbean started rebelling against their slaveholders. The celebration takes place in July and August and involves people greased up in black parading and dancing in the street, sometimes carrying around animals such as frogs or snakes (archived here).
Lead Stories did a search using keywords on the Google News archive, which found no credible documents or reporting to confirm the claim (archived here).
