Editor's Note: This column discusses suspected suicide. There is help. For mental health support, call 988 or visit 988lifeline.org.
Supporters and some family members of a 20-year-old Ohio college student say the young Haitian was so humiliated after being bullied about the ankle monitor our government forced him to wear that he threw himself under a moving semi-trailer truck.
The tragedy shook many, while others took the young man's death as an opportunity for evil.
"I call it a savings and a plane ticket not to buy," "Michael C.," commented under a Dispatch Facebook post on Gov. Mike DeWine's reaction to the Aug. 31 death of Springfield High School graduate Pierre Damas Bel
Like 350,000 other Haitian immigrants, Bel was stripped of his Temporary
Protected Status as part ofPresident Donald Trump's ruthless campaignagainst immigrants, particularly those who were not born with ivory skin.
"I think we have to ask ourselves: is this really good? Is it what we want done to people like this being picked up and facing deportation? Do we want that being done in our name?" DeWine said in response to the Wright State University student's death.
Governor, the answer for many Americans is "yes."
Yes, those Americans think the despicable lies Trump and JD Vance spread during the 2024 electionabout Haitian immigrants eating dogs and cats in Springfield are really good.
Yes, they want people like Bel − a Texas Roadhouse employee who in high school was active in the U.S. Army-sponsored Junior Reserve Officers' Training Corps − to be picked up and deported to a country so violent that the Federal Aviation Administration won't let American airliners land there.
Not only do they want it done in their names, they want to laugh about it. They want the humiliation. They want the deaths. They want a pound of flesh from people whose only mistake was believing America is what it claims to be.
"I came to this country to pursue my education. I didn’t come here to commit a crime or hurt anyone," Bel, a would-be neuroscience major, posted to Instagram in July. "Yet now I’m walking through the streets of the United States with a GPS monitor on my leg, carrying a feeling of shame and humiliation that I never imagined I would experience."
What they − like Vance, many of them supposed "followers" of Jesus Christ − are telling the world is that the American dream is at worst a myth and at best meant only for those with the right skin color.
The Ohio Highway Patrol is investigating Bel's death. There has been no official ruling. In a statement, the agency said Bel left his Toyota on the right shoulder of Interstate 70 in Clark County and entered its westbound lanes. He died at the scene after being struck by a semi-trailer truck.
If what supporters and some of Bel's family members believe is true is true - his dad naturally wants definitive evidence (wouldn't you?) - it seems a young man took atragic action that can't be reversed.
That's no reason to rejoice. An awful tragedy befell someone's baby.
Plenty of Facebook users expressed sorrow about Bel's death and the Trump Administration's cruelty to Haitian refugees. But "Michael C," a police dog lover, was far from the only one who took delight in the fact that a human being's life was cut short.
Governor, I know you agree that it is un-American that Pierre Damas Bel and 350,000 other Haitians − many of whom risk death if they return to Haiti − have been targeted.
The vast majority of Americans know this, but online trolls don't just live in their mothers' basements as I once thought. Governor, they are real Americans, not just bots or trolls.
They breathe fire among us, fueled by resentment and fear that someone else will take what they have. The reality is that they don't have it either.
I pity them. I pity us. They are the us we refuse to truly reject. They are the darkness we must admit lives in our American heart.
The hate and fear spoil our milk and sour our honey.
Young Pierre Damas Bel provided definitive evidence.
Amelia Robinson is the Columbus Dispatch opinion and community engagement editor.
This article originally appeared on The Columbus Dispatch: Pierre Damas Bel wanted the American dream. America proved it doesn't exist | Opinion
