Ohio community stands in solidarity in Haitian student’s death

SPRINGFIELD, Ohio—A soft breeze blew the two flags stationed behind the podium in the quad area of Wright State University in Fairborn, Ohio: one American; the other Haitian, representing the dual reality Ohio’s Haitian community lives under.

Usually a social and cultural hub of university life, the quad instead became a place of remembrance as hundreds gathered to honor the life of Pierre Damas Bel. The school’s Student Government Association joined other student leaders and campus organizations to stage the memorial, held on Sept. 8.

Pierre Damas Bel was a 20-year-old Haitian immigrant who had just begun his freshman year at the university. He wanted to study neuroscience and had plans to attend medical school.

His circumstances changed dramatically after the Trump administration terminated Haiti’s Temporary Protected Status (TPS), which had provided eligible Haitians protection from deportation and authorization to work in the United States. Pierre also had a pending asylum case. His next asylum hearing was scheduled for October, according to The Washington Post.

Pierre legally entered the U.S. in 2024 and settled in Springfield, Ohio, to live with his family. He attended Springfield High School, where he played varsity soccer and participated in the Marine Corps Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (JROTC). He graduated high school with honors.

On July 29, two days after the termination of Haiti’s TPS designation, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) fitted Pierre with a GPS ankle monitor. Pierre posted about his experience.

“I came to this country to pursue my education. I didn’t come here to commit a crime or hurt anyone. 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,” Pierre wrote in an Instagram post on July 30.

“I came here to study, to build my future and to live a better [life], not to be treated like [a] criminal. So now, how am I supposed [to] play college sports with a GPS monitor on my leg?”

After being fitted with the monitor, Pierre could not play college soccer, according to his family. He was also the only person in his college ROTC program who did not receive a uniform. Pierre’s father said Pierre believed the ankle monitor was the reason.

The U.S. Army Error! Hyperlink reference not valid. told CNN that Pierre wasn’t eligible to become a cadet in the ROTC program because of his immigration status and that he was taking the class as an elective.

When Wright State began fall semester classes, Pierre attended one week of classes before he died on Aug. 31. His family believes he died by suicide after experiencing bullying.

At a Sept. 1 press conference, Pastor Carl Ruby with Central Christian Church in Springfield read a statement prepared by Pierre’s father, Pierre Ronal Bel. Pierre felt like he was being treated like an animal, and he pleaded twice with ICE officers to remove the monitor, Pierre’s father shared.

“This morning (Aug. 31), he left the house at 8 am. He called me at 8:03 on a video call and he said dad, ‘I’m not feeling ok. I’m not thinking right because of the bullies.’ And I told him come, come home so that we can talk.

I had my youngest to take to school, so I took him to school. Around 11:00, police showed up at my door to report that my son had thrown himself under a truck,” Pierre’s father said.

The Ohio State Highway Patrol said Pierre parked his car on the side of the road and walked into traffic, where he was hit by a tractor-trailer. The patrol is still investigating his death.

When Landy Joseph, a 19-year-old computer science major at Wittenberg University in Springfield, saw Pierre’s Instagram post, she texted him that she was there for him and that he could always count on her. She knew Pierre for two years, throughout junior and senior year of high school. She is also Haitian.

She was part of the same JROTC program as Pierre, and the two students did everything in the program together. “Pierre was really a good leader, somebody that you can count on,” she said. “We were always in the same team, leading.”

She issued the following message to other young Haitians who may be going through something similar: “I know it’s hard, but I don’t think this has to be the solution to these problems. We can still fight. We should not give up. And yes, it’s hard to live like this, but it’s not the end yet, and we can still do great things.” 

A grieving community

For James Fleurijean, an administrative assistant with the Haitian Community Help and Support Center in Springfield, out of everything that has happened to Haitians in the city, Pierre’s death hurts most.

“That’s one thing that really hurt me, because he was in my office just like you [The Final Call staff] are. He was sitting over there one or two weeks before that,” Mr. Fleurijean said to The Final Call. He recalled getting a knock on his door from Pierre’s father and two brothers. 

“Even before they went to see the body, that’s where they came. They were exactly in this room here, sitting and telling us the story, and I received it in the morning just like that, and I was so shocked until now. And the first thing I did is that I went out … I went out to cry, and then I came back to talk to the dad. And the same night, I stay with them till 11 p.m.,” he said.

Pierre’s death also shook longtime Black residents of Springfield and surrounding areas. Reverend Michael Young, pastor of Springfield’s Zion Hill Baptist Church and president of the Interdenominational Ministerial Fellowship, shared with The Final Call that the community is grieving.

“He was an asset, not a liability, to his community, to society, but he was treated as though he was a liability,” he said. He has grandchildren who are Pierre’s age and shared how blessed he has been to watch them grow up and become assets to society.

“But his parents will not get that opportunity to see the outcome and the fruitfulness of their commitment and the nurturing and caring and rearing of their son,” he said. “They have been denied that.”

Do ankle monitors matter? Just ask Pierre’s parents, the truck driver, the law enforcement officers who showed up to the scene, the people on the interstate who were stopped in traffic, he said. “For those who say it doesn’t matter, this young man let everybody know: yes, it did matter.”

As of Sept. 8, a funeral had not been held for Pierre. Mr. Fleurijean shared that Pierre’s father is still deciding on whether to have the funeral in Springfield or in Haiti and desires to receive the final police report and final investigation findings first.

Solidarity among students

Before the memorial began, four young Black women representing Wright State’s chapter of Sigma Gamma Rho Sorority Inc. stood in a circle—Armoni Collins, Jayla Gordon, Aleese Walker and DeAsia Green-Brown.

Toward the end of the memorial, they huddled together, holding small candles with lit flames. As the two flags—American and Haitian—blew in the wind, a five-minute silence stretched across the quad and among the group of four. 

They attended the memorial as a show of unity and love, they said to The Final Call.

Ms. Collins, a third-year psychology major, does not believe Pierre deserved what happened to him. “It’s really not fair, and I genuinely just feel so bad that he was only here for so long.

He couldn’t even get the real college experience or let alone figure out who he was because he was politically treated differently, and it’s not fair to nobody who’s even going through this situation,” she said. “We shouldn’t be scared to be in our skin and have to feel like we’re walking on eggshells in the place that we live.”

“It’s just another life lost to racism,” Ms. Green-Brown, a fourth-year social work major, said. “I am tired of it, and it’s sad to say that it’s probably going to keep happening, but we just gotta stick together, come together and keep doing this, be a community.”

As part of the memorial’s program, student leaders, many of whom were of marginalized communities themselves, spoke on the true meaning of solidarity. 

Eimaan Virani, Student Government Association president and a junior public health major, said the memorial was organized by students who knew Pierre, students who knew of Pierre, students who are immigrants or children of immigrants.

Students who know what it means to live in fear and students whose hearts were touched by Pierre’s life and passing. She described the “unimaginable level of public dehumanization” Haitians are enduring.

“We stand here tonight as a testament to the fact that rhetoric can, in fact, enter our schools, our workplaces, our communities, shaping how we learn to treat people. And we must also be honest about what happened to Pierre within our own walls. The humiliation, harassment and cruelty he experienced was wrong,” she said.

She urged attendees to take on the responsibility of standing beside one’s neighbor even if it is uncomfortable. To The Final Call, she acknowledged her identity as a Muslim woman wearing a hijab.

“I know what it feels like to be feared just for what you look like,” she said. She shared that the memorial was motivated by seeing the grief of Pierre’s parents.

“Pierre was pre-med. I’m pre-med. Pierre was 20. I’m 20,” she said. “I did not know him, but it’s likely that we would have crossed paths. There’s just so much shared humanity that we had, and I think understanding that and being able to build from that was the motivation behind this event and this memorial.”

Jesús Carachure Jacobo, a junior international business student, was born in the U.S. but grew up in Mexico. He called the ankle monitor a “tool of oppression.”

“I saw myself in him. And when I heard that he died in the tragic way that he died, I felt like a part of me died, and I felt like someone else in my family could have been that person,” he said to attendees. He is the only person in his family who is a U.S. citizen. He shared with The Final Call the fear in his parents, uncles and aunts.

“Quite truthfully, it’s a very dire situation. I believe that it’s going to be like this for a little while, and all we have to do and really can do is just support each other and have each other’s backs when it comes to these very dangerous institutions,” he said.

“The only thing we can do is resist and try to find the best ways we know how. In my opinion, that is just talking to each other, staying connected, knowing what’s happening to whose neighbor, in what community, showing up there as fast as possible to support.”

Tracey Gray attended the memorial with her son, who is a junior at Wright State. “It touched me as a mom just to hear of another young Black male who had promise.

It just crushed something in me as a mother, and I wanted to come to honor his memory,” she said to The Final Call. She said her son is about the same age as Pierre and is also an honor student. “I couldn’t help but see him through my son,” she said.

Johnny Holloway graduated from Wright State in 2022. He attended the memorial to show students they have a support system. “I can empathize with Pierre because I am a Black man in America.

And I have been through some things, especially with the police and things of that nature, and it just hurts my heart to know that he felt that was the only way to end the suffering that he was going through,” he said.

“I think a lot of times, we just see the condition or we just see the monitor and we kind of forget that he is a human at the end of the day.”

“Yes, he was from a different country, but he was still a human, and he was just here to get a better opportunity for his family and for himself,” he added.

If you or someone you know is struggling or in crisis, call on Allah (God ) and pray with them or refer them to a trusted spiritual guide, or if all else fails, then please call or text 988 to reach the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline.

(Contributing Editor James G. Muhammad contributed to this report.)

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