Springfield residents say the crashes keep coming — and so do the bills

I was put into contact with a Springfield, Ohio, man named Quinn Ferrell, who showed me pictures of the complete destruction of his detached garage by a Haitian driver. Quinn is an exotic pet owner, and the Haitian annihilation resulted in a horrific scene of gore and splatter.

Quinn wrote:

At [3:00 a.m.] me and my wife were jolted awake after hearing what can only be described as an explosion right outside of our bedroom. When I got up I ran outside to hear the noise of a car hitting the rev [limiter], drowsy and still sleepy, I had no idea what I was looking at until I went to the front of my garage. When I saw the door was lodged into the back of my (now-destroyed) Jetta, I knew someone had crashed into my garage from the back of the building. Meaning he ramped my rear neighbor[’]s yard went airborne, slammed through my privacy fence, then crashed [completely] through my entire garage knocking 3 of the four walls off of its foundation.

Stories like Quinn’s are depressingly easy to find. ... You'll quickly notice something: The race and nationality of the offending driver are rarely reported.

When I walked around back I was helping the man “Joanne Francois” out of his vehicle because the garage was falling in. As soon as he hopped out all he kept saying was “[I’m OK, I'm OK]!” He was heavily intoxicated. So I yell to my wife to call the cops and then he takes off running. I tackled him at the fence and he started assaulting me so I returned the favor.

In the midst of the fight I was able to grab him into the front yard and he persisted on fighting. So I continued to fight back to keep him there. When the police finally arrived a few officers drew weapons at me and told me to get off the man. I explained what had happened and that he was drunk and they acted as if I was lying. So I demanded the officer in charge to come with me to assess the situation. I was threatened with arrest on multiple occasions because of how loud I was being. When state troopers arrived (for some reason they had to be the ones to administer the breathalyzer) he blew twice the legal limit.

After all was said and done he was refused at the jail, got to go home that night, and got a failure to maintain ticket. He had no insurance, no license, and from my understanding the car wasn't in his name. So I am STILL to this day repairing my building slowly. My insurance only covered some of the items inside. And a small amount for the building ($6,000 of the $60,000 dollars of quoted damages) because of the lack of insurance on his end.

I had fish and reptiles in that building that were dead scattered all over my property. None were covered. ...

I was called racist for speaking out about it. Being a Haitian [isn't] a race[, it’s] a nationality. [That’s] like me saying [I’m] Ohionese.

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Guerinault Louis/Anadolu via Getty Images

I could not believe his story, which is exactly why I did. Quinn was treated by Springfield police as the assailant, the criminal, the instigator. Why? I can only guess. (He's white.)

Stories like Quinn’s are depressingly easy to find on search engines with long-trail keywords like “Springfield Ohio crash.” You'll quickly notice something: The race and nationality of the offending driver are rarely reported. “Car crashes into garage in Springfield.” Yes, I'm sure it did. All by itself.

It’s more than residences too. I was contacted by Brian Cox, who showed me photos and videos of “the aftermath of a Haitian who ran her car all the way through the wall of our business.” Here’s what he told me:

[The Haitian woman] got in the parked car, put it in drive, and went right through. Wasn't cited because the cops said it was on private property. We had to find a new home for the business.

We’re in the process of suing our own insurance company. They tried to deny the claim for moving expenses and loss of income. And I have had all my insurance with them since 1979.

She was on [Temporary Protected Status].

The male Haitian [who was with the woman] tried to stare down (you know, mean-mug) my son while he was talking to the police. Didn't work. The Haitians have some sort of money-transfer business there. Now that TPS is done, we'll be reporting the business to ICE. ...

The way I see it, Springfield has been having a really hard time for at least the last 35 years. ... It seems to me that those who want to profit from unfettered third world immigration pick on these types of communities because the people generally are slow to fight back. Many of them are so busy trying to survive they don't have the extra energy to protect themselves from being overrun by hordes of refugees who will only make the area suffer more. Worse, they take advantage of the better nature of the poor white population that doesn't want to appear racist. There's something really evil about that, using the best in people to harm them.

There truly is, Brian.

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REBECCA NOBLE/AFP via Getty Images

Of course, the most grievous traffic lack-of-safety demonstration of the Haitian situation was the school bus accident that made headlines beyond Springfield. None other than Walter Curt broke that story, but the worst part was, he shouldn't have had to. This wasn't an inevitable tragedy, and it didn’t need to happen.

On August 22, 2023, the first day of school, Hermanio Joseph, a 35-year-old Haitian immigrant, crossed the center line of the road in a 2010 Honda Odyssey minivan and collided with a Northwestern Local Schools bus carrying 52 elementary school students, forcing it off the road down an embankment where it flipped. Approximately half the students were injured, and Aiden Clark, 11, was ejected from the bus and killed.

Hermanio Joseph was later found to be an illegal alien, having come up through Mexico, who was detained at the southern border but then released into the United States in 2022 while given a notice to appear before an immigration court. ICE officials blamed President Biden's “catch and release” policy for Joseph being let free. He also didn’t have a valid U.S. driver’s license, only a Mexican driver’s license, as confirmed by Breitbart News.

Joseph was convicted of multiple felonies on May 1, 2024, in a one-day trial. The jury deliberated for an hour before delivering its verdict. His defense was that the sun was in his eyes at the time.

But what made news was not the conviction, but the response of Aiden Clark’s father.

"I wish that my son, Aiden Clark, was killed by a 60-year-old white man. I bet you never thought anyone would say something so blunt."

What an odd thing to say. I wish young Aiden hadn't been killed at all.

“Parent’s worst nightmare,” Brittany Fisher told a local news outlet. Two of her children were on the bus when Joseph slammed into it. “The kids are gonna remember this for the rest of their lives. They’re never going to forget this.”

Fisher reached out to me when she learned I was writing a book. We spoke, and here is what she wants you to know:

My two kids ... were on that bus that day. ... [My husband] passed away in 2023. It was about six months later that I put my kids on the bus. So I was trying to navigate life being a single mom of three to very small children, a two-year-old, a five-year-old, and a ten-year-old.

It was my five-year-old's first day of kindergarten and my ten-year-old's first day of fifth grade. Anyway, I put them on the bus. I see all these police cruisers go by shortly after. ... [M]y house [was] right down the road from the school. ... I immediately get in my car. I'm thinking it's a bomb threat. I go up the road. I parked my car to see the bus that I had just put my kids on completely destroyed. I ran over there. An officer tried to stop me, but I just blew past him. And I thought that Aiden Clark was one of my kids for like 30 seconds. I found one of my children, but I couldn't find my older child.

I started screaming because I thought he was deceased. And then the principal had already made it down, and he knew me, and he told me that [my older son] was in an ambulance and headed to Children's and to take my younger son and just go.

I put my younger son in the car — this is all in the middle of the chaos. Police officers are crying. Everybody's wailing. There’s blood everywhere. It’s the worst thing imaginable as a parent.

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SETH HERALD/AFP via Getty Images

My long story short, my older son needed months of physical therapy. He missed months of school. He was wearing high-top sneakers, and they blew off his feet.

At the scene, I was told that the driver was 90% over in the wrong lane.

Even though I have health insurance, I was left with bills from co-pays that added up from all this physical therapy. So I go to the attorney general's victim of crime fund; they told me to do that. I fill out everything. I’m thinking it’s no problem, you know, I shouldn't have to pay anything for this. They denied my claim.

The day after the accident, I got to meet with [Governor Mike DeWine], and I looked him in the eyes and I was like, “Please, if there's anything you can do with seat belts. ... Aiden flew. I was there. Aiden flew out of the bus window, and all those children were ... very injured. And it flipped! So, seat belts ... can you do something? Because Aiden would still be here had he not flown out of that window.”

A little bit after that, he started a panel of people to decide whether or not to put seat belts in school buses. And they decided not to. So I was completely filled with righteous anger [and have been] ever since.

I decided to move.

Northwestern, the community, got together and raised a little bit of money at the beginning, and I was told that they gave Aiden's family [a specific amount] and they gave all of us other people like $1,200 per child, which is sweet. Nobody had to do that. That's great. But that is not gonna cut it. ... Come on now.

So my three things going forward from this accident have been compensation for Aiden's family and all those kids; an investigation into how all of this was even allowed to happen; and seat belts on school buses. Any parent is like, “Of course! Who would not want seat belts on school buses?”

I can't believe I have to fight so hard to get the right things done. And the very people who are supposed to help us, our politicians, I have called everybody, every senator, every [congressional representative], trying to get meetings with people.

Somebody, somewhere, is orchestrating all of this. And this is all about greed and corruption. The Haitian people have been exploited so they can work at Amazon and places like that and get government benefits so these corporations don't have to pay Americans a living wage. ...

As far as an investigation into all the fraud and corruption and as far as compensation ... eventually somebody is probably going to file a lawsuit against the federal government for letting this guy in with TPS with a fake ID, which is a crime and should have never happened. So someday, hopefully, the federal government will get sued and all those kids will get compensated. But nobody's helping me ... figure that out. ... Who do I go to who can help us? ... Who can group someone together and help us get this lawsuit going? Because in a normal accident situation ... Aiden's family would get ... half a million or a million-plus dollars.

Obviously, DeWine doesn't want to meet with me. I've tried. I've called his office several [times]. They know me. I've called his office trying to get a meeting with this guy. I've tried to fill out everything online. He's not interested. He doesn't want to meet with me. I'm just begging him. If I could just look him in the eyes, I think we could start moving in the right direction.

But instead, he is saying things like, “The Haitians have been good for the economy even though innocent Americans have been killed.” Like Aiden Clark and that poor woman who got hit by a car just getting her trash can. And all of that never needed to happen if our government was doing its job protecting American citizens first.

I ended up leaving and moving to Kentucky. My daughter started kindergarten this past year, and there is a child in her class named Aiden Clark, first name and last name.

God is in control. I'm going to do my part. I can't rest anyway knowing what all those kids have been through and seeing buses around and the first day of school every year I cry because I think about Aiden’s family and all those kids [who are] forever traumatized. That’s forever with them, and we can't even get seat belts.

If there’s any way you could help me, I would greatly appreciate it. And I know those kids would too.

Editor’s note: This article has been excerpted from Joshua Lisec’s new book, “Haitians of Springfield: An Oral History” (Regnery Publishing).

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