Oconee County Sheriff James Hale said on Friday afternoon his office is investigating the distribution of anti-Semitic flyers early Thursday in subdivisions in the county.
Residents of Daniell Plantation, Twelve Oaks, Lake Wellbrook, and Welbrook Farms all reported having the flyers thrown on their driveways or porches and put into the mailboxes over night.
The four subdivisions are in close proximity.
Daniell Plantation and Twelve Oaks are accessible from Hog Mountain Road east of Butler's Crossing, while Lake Wellbrook and Welbrook Farms are on Daniells Bridge Road.
“We are still trying to develop a suspect,” Hale said in his email.
“We are also exploring all avenues of state laws and county ordinances to see what charge if any we can apply to these incidents,” he continued.
Hale said at the time he wrote, 4:31 p.m. on Friday, that “We are aware of at least two subdivisions in Oconee that residents found these flyers.”
Hale did not identify those two subdivisions, but residents of all four of the subdivisions by late Friday evening had reported in various Facebook groups having received the flyers.
Method Of Distribution
A resident of Twelve Oaks reported that “The flyers are being distributed tightly rolled up and placed inside plastic baggies, then tossed onto driveways and front walkways and porches.”
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| One Of Subdivisions Hit With Anti-Semitic Flyers |
“It has come to my attention that many of our neighbors at Welbrook Farms and Lake Welbrook received some extremely hateful antisemitic literature wrapped in plastic on their driveways today,” a resident of Welbrook Farms reported on Friday evening.
This individual had not received the material.
A member of the neighborhood who did receive the material reported that it had appeared between 6:30 and 7:45 a.m. on Thursday, not Friday.
I live in Welbrook Farms as well, and I did not receive the flyers and did not see them as I walked around a section of the neighborhood with my dog early on Thursday mornings.
It seems likely that whoever tossed out the flyers drove through the neighborhood and then left without covering the entire subdivision.
“We received a 'deposit' last night in Daniel Plantation as well,” another person posted on Facebook.
“They were also distributed in Lake Wellbrook,” another person posted on the same group page.
The Athens Banner-Herald reported on Thursday that “last week, several neighborhoods in Athens were littered with anti-Semitic flyers.”
NOTE
I updated this story at 12:30 p.m. on Saturday, 3/18/2023, based on new information I received about the timing of the distribution of the fliers in Welbrook Farms.
Before I posted this story, I had copies of at least four different flyers that people said they received.
All are printed, with three of the four using color. All make sophistical use of carefully reproduced images.
The flyers deny the existence of the Holocaust, claim that "Every Single Aspect Of The Biden Administration Is Jewish," attack the Anti-Defamation League, and state that "Judaism Is Communism."
I decided not to use the pictures until I had reflected more on the consequences of including them in the post.
Since the goal of whoever distributed the flyers was to disseminate these messages, I decided not to include the pictures of the flyers themselves in the original post or in this update.
1 comment:
This makes me so sad.
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