SOUTHBURY, Conn. (WTNH) – Residents in a quiet Southbury neighborhood are shocked and outraged after white supremacist flyers were found placed in residential driveways.
Flyers containing the words “White Lives Matter” on the cover and featuring hateful messages, images, and statistics were discovered along Glen Lane at some point on Nov. 18.
Brea Varney told News 8 she was shocked to learn someone distributed this hateful literature in what she described as a diverse neighborhood.
“I didn’t even want to look at it, be part of it,” Varney said. “It was just disturbing.”
A police investigation is underway, with neighbors handing over video captured on home surveillance cameras.
During her six-year living along this picturesque cul-de-sac, Varney said she’s never experienced anything like this.
“It just didn’t felt very pleasant. This has no place here,” she said. “I can’t believe any disturbed individual would do this.”
One neighbor who didn’t want to be identified feels nervous about the flyers and believes this neighborhood was “targeted.”
Connecticut’s Anti-Defamation League (ADL) said the White Lives Matter group emerged in the spring of 2021, and our state began seeing activity just last month.
The ADL’s website shows that in 2022, the number of hateful incidents in Connecticut involving white supremacist propaganda has nearly doubled from last year.
“Frequently neighborhoods are targeted, and sometimes the groups are looking to recruit individuals to join their groups, and ttheyre trying to intimidate and spread fear,” Stacey Sobel, the regional director of Connecticut’s ADL told News 8.
Sobel also said the recent spotlight put on antisemitic hate speech by celebrities like Kanye West is only fueling the problem.
“There is no doubt that Kanye’s unhinged antisemitic remarks and his doubling down on them, again and again, is having a real-world impact.”
Meanwhile, Southbury serves as a small example of a much larger issue in Connecticut.
If you experience something like this, you’re urged to call police and contact the Anti-Defamation League.