http://www.rep-am.com/story.php?id=5779&p=0

Residents upset by Neo-Nazi items found in driveways

Friday, April 21, 2006

BY SYDNEY SCHWARTZ

WASHINGTON, Conn. -- Neo-Nazi propaganda was found scattered in driveways throughout town Thursday morning.

It was not known how many homeowners found the materials, but the first selectman's office received more than four phone calls and state police at Troop L in Litchfield received another two or three, a trooper said.

Residents found recruitment materials including CD-ROMs entitled "White Entertainment Television" and booklets called "FACTS The Government and Media Don't Want You to Know." Others found detailed pamphlets on "Homosexual Marriage Laws" and "Aryan Matters" on their front lawns.

The pamphlets contained swastikas, advertisements for the Imperial Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, and anti-Semitic, anti-immigrant cartoons.

The booklets had a photograph of the World Trade Center burning under a Jewish Star, and a message from the Rev. Matt Hale, director of the Creativity Movement, a white supremacist convicted for soliciting the murder of a federal judge.

Residents reported finding white supremacist propaganda on Old Litchfield, Blackville and Nichols Hill roads and East and South streets.

"It's an obscenity," said resident Valerie Andersen, who found a booklet resembling a newspaper wrapped in plastic in her driveway. "We all should feel violated that this appeared on our property."

Another resident, Mary Ellen McGorty said her husband noticed a CD-ROM near their driveway when he went out to fetch the newspaper. He immediately broke it in half and threw it out. She found another down the street that afternoon.

Kathy Gollow, the selectman's assistant, said several residents dropped off materials at Town Hall, including one woman who picked up numerous pamphlets along East Street.

Gollow said she called the police, but was told they could not do anything because of the Constitutional protections of free speech and information. They encouraged callers to throw out the paperwork, she said.

[color="Red"]One trooper said the state police were not taking complaints.

First Selectman Richard C. Sears said he is troubled by the information. He said it is legal to distribute such material, but illegal to litter people's driveways.

"I'm really disturbed and saddened by the distribution of this hateful material," he said. "The message is just hateful and bias."

The first selectman said he could not remember this type of information being distributed in recent history.

The Connecticut NAACP, based in Hartford, said it had not received any complaints Thursday.

Representatives from the Anti-Defamation League, an organization that combats anti-Semitism and bigotry, could not be reached for comment. Offices were closed Thursday, the last day of the Jewish holiday Passover.

One resident, Arthur Frumkus, who is Jewish, said he is concerned about who is distributing the information and what they might do next.

"This is something out of a bad movie about incidents that were happening in Jackson, Miss., 30 years ago, 40 years ago," he said. "Next thing, they'll be out burning crosses."