A Connecticut town held an “anti-racism rally” Wednesday night after local lawns were covered with flyers reading “Black Crimes Matter,” following an attempted robbery of a white man’s car that left him severely beaten.
The attempted car theft was captured on April 10 on a Ring doorbell camera.
A young black man is seen approaching the red Infiniti Q50 sedan parked in a doorway, looking out. The vehicle is worth $42,000 new.
He tries the driver’s side door and finds it unlocked, then jumps in.
The homeowner rushes out and confronts him, and the black man attacks him. As the pair fight and fall to the ground, another three men run out of a waiting car to join in the beating.
The homeowner can be seen carrying the first thief on his shoulders, with a second member of the gang running towards him on April 10
The man is seen on the ground being attacked by the gang, who wanted to steal his red car
On April 13, the neighborhood where the man was robbed by the car thief gang was littered with these paper leaflets
The flyers urged “white men” to “defend white communities” by joining a New England neo-Nazi group
The homeowner has hoisted the initial thief behind his head, but the others drag him to the ground. At one point, he is in a submission hold when the gang kicks and punches him – one kicking him so hard that his sneaker falls off, then continues to hit him with the shoe.
The four thieves then run away, leaving the homeowner – who did not appear to be seriously injured – to dust himself off and inspect his bruises.
Sergeant Jeffrey Foss-Rugan said the attackers were “three younger black males and one younger white/Hispanic male.”
Three days later, the small white pamphlets were nearby, with “Black Crimes Matter” typed on the front and the contact details of a neo-Nazi group on the back.
Valerie Triblets, a member of the Rocky Hill Congregational Church’s Racial Justice Steering Committee, said she had no doubt the attempted car theft and racist fliers were connected.
“They were generally scattered in the same neighborhood as the attack, Valley View Drive,” she said.
She added that the supremacist group is “using it as an opportunity to spread hatred.”
Triblets wrote a statement on behalf of her church that was posted on Facebook: “We call out the bad behavior of those who chose to spread hate through our neighborhoods in an effort to sow moral panic and convince good people that there is a connection between race and race. and criminal behaviour.’
Sergeant Jeffrey Foss-Rugan said the attackers were “three younger black men and one younger white/Hispanic man.”
Valerie Triblets, a member of the Rocky Hill Congregational Church’s Racial Justice Steering Committee, said she believed the attempted car theft motivated the distribution of the neo-Nazi flyers.
The group, New England Nationalist Social Club, NSC-131, has been trying to recruit people for four years, The Hartford Courant reported.
The Southern Poverty Law Center says the group is “a neo-Nazi group based in New England whose activities include organizing protests and distributing hate literature.”
Its leader, Christopher Hood, a former member of the Proud Boys, and many of its members have faced criminal charges, in some cases related to their racist activism, the Southern Poverty Center said.
A community meeting was held on Wednesday night and a march will be held on Sunday under the motto, “Unite Against White Supremacy in Connecticut.”
Kate Schramm, who lives near Valley View Drive, told The Courant she noticed the slips of paper while walking her dog.
“I was surprised to see them. They looked like little bits of garbage,” Schramm said.
‘I caught one. I was just disgusted.’
She said many of the papers are still scattered around the neighborhood.
‘They are very small. You wouldn’t notice them if you weren’t looking for them,’ she said.
The flyers were left on the lawns of Rocky Hill
A meeting was held on Wednesday to discuss the neo-Nazi recruitment campaign, and a march is scheduled for Saturday
The Anti-Defamation League, which monitors anti-Semitism and other hate crimes, reported 207 incidents of white supremacist propaganda in Connecticut in 2022 — an increase of 115 percent from 2021.
Connecticut is now ninth in the country in the number of incidents, according to ADL.
“The number of instances of distribution of white supremacist propaganda in Connecticut is at an all-time high,” said Stacey Sobel ADL Connecticut Regional Director in their annual report.
“Everyone must come together to reject hate and extremism and work to create a better community that excludes, marginalizes or targets no one.”