Skip to content

A town square for an unsquare town

redbankgreen

Standing for the vitality of Red Bank, its community, and the fun we have together.

RED BANK: KKK FLIERS LEFT ON LAWNS

kkk-011816-3-500x375-3319211One of the fliers found on McLaren Street Monday morning. (Click to enlarge)

[See update below]

By JOHN T. WARD

just_in-220x90-5372911Residents of Red Bank and Fair Haven awoke Monday morning — Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Day — to find fliers purporting to be from the Ku Klux Klan on their lawns, police said.

The fliers, enclosed in ziploc bags and weighted with small stones, disparage King as a “communist pervert.”

kkk-011816-2-500x368-2061912One of the fliers found on John Street Monday morning. (Click to enlarge)

One of the two fliers purports to recount a litany of sexual transgressions by King. The other shows a map of the United States with the U.S. flag inverted and below the Mexican flag on a pole, with the text: “Hey Gringo! What will you do when this happens to you?”

Both purport to come from or endorse the Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, based in Pelham, North Carolina, whose website carries similar rhetoric.

A call to the number on the flier was answered with a lengthy prerecorded message saying that King was a “perverted Communist nigger” who participated in orgies with prostitutes and conspired to incite riots. A request for comment was not immediately responded to.

[Update: Rufus Johnson, who identified himself as a media spokesman for the Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, confirmed Monday afternoon that the fliers were part of a nationwide campaign by the organization to call attention to what it believes is King’s unworthiness of honor. He said local distributors frequently use plastic bags weighted with stones or rice to keep them from blowing away. He declined to identify local representatives, but said the group has a chapter in New Jersey.]

Red Bank police Chief Darren McConnell told redbankgreen that his department and police in Fair Haven had received several reports of the fliers.

“As horrible as it is on its face,” the distribution of the fliers is not itself a crime, though ordinances may have been violated if the material was thrown from a moving vehicle, McConnell said. He said his department and Fair Haven’s were investigating, and that the Monmouth County Prosecutor’s Office had been notified.

David Cassidy, a volunteer firefighter who lives on McLaren Street, said he had “a rotten, rude awakening” when he found the fliers in a plastic bag on his lawn.

“In all my eight years living here, I’ve never heard of anything like this,” said Cassidy, who termed the rhethoric “absurd.”

A woman who lives on John Street and asked not to be identified told redbankgreen she was “freaked out” to see the literature on her lawn. “It’s shocking that this still exists in this area,” she said. “It scares the hell out of me.”

According to a report last July 1 by NJTV, similar fliers were found on Washington Street in Red Bank, in plastic bags weighted down with candy, and about 100 were found in December, 2014 in Rutherford.

Remember: Nothing makes a Red Bank friend happier than to hear "I saw you on Red Bank Green!"
Partyline
THEY’RE BACK!
Ospreys returned to the skies over Red Bank this week for the first time since they migrated to warmer climes in late fall. With temperature ...
SPRING IS SPRUNG
RED BANK: Spring 2024 arrives on the Greater Red Bank Green with the vernal equinox at 11:06 p.m. Tuesday.
RED BANK’S FINEST – AND NEWEST
Red Bank Police Officer Eliot Ramos was sworn in as the force’s newest patrolman Thursday, and if you’re doing a double take thinkin ...
EASTER EGG MAYHEM AT THE PARK
An errant whistle spurred an unexpectedly early start to the Spring Egg Hunt on Sunday, which had been scheduled to begin at eggsactly 11am ...
PRESEASON DOCKWORK
RED BANK: With winter winding down, marina gets ready for boating season with some dockwork on our beautiful Navesink River.
CORNED BEEF AND DISCO FRIES?
It’s Friday, and smart Lent-observing Leprechauns know the pot of gold at the end of Red Bank’s rainbow is actually the deliciou ...
SURFBOARD DITCHED
It’s a violation of etiquette in surfing to ditch your board.  (it could hit another surfer and hurt them). But someone appears to ha ...
ELSIE, TAKE ME WITH YOU!
Soaked by pouring rain with the temperature hovering in the low 40’s, this sign in the window of Elsie’s Subs on Monmouth Street ...
WALK THIS WAY
PARTYLINE: Before-and-afters of a sidewalk cleanup on West Street.
SOGGY NOTION
RED BANK: Breezeway sculpture captured the mood downtown as heavy rains fell Saturday morning.
HOME DELIVERY
RED BANK: After a subdivision, an instant house rises on a new Catherine Street lot.
COMMUNITY PROFILES
For Black History Month, Red Bank's Community Engagement and Equity Advisory Committee has been running a series of local profiles on Facebo ...
HEARTY FAREWELL FOR HARDY
RED BANK: Council to honor DPU supervisor Rich Hardy, who retired recently after almost 39 years of keeping things running.
HOMEBOUND? READ ON…
RED BANK: Can't get to the public library? It's now offering free delivery and pickups for homebound borough residents.
TAMING A BEAST OF A WEEK
RED BANK: After the second snowfall of the week, a borough family finds the perfect use for it – a Godzilla snow sculpture.
RED BANK: LIBRARY CLOSED, BUT THE HILL’S OPEN
RED BANK: Though the library was closed by a snowstorm, kids got to enjoy the riverfront property's steep slope Tuesday.
LIGHT(HOUSE) MAKEOVER
This year, getting ready for spring means a midwinter makeover for Strollo's Lighthouse in Red Bank.
TODAY: LOCAL PUPPY COMPETES ON ANIMAL PLANET’S “PUPPY BOWL”
Red Bank’s very own rescue puppy, Biscuit, is set to compete in Animal Planet’s Puppy Bowl this Sunday, February 11, at 2 PM. Th ...
WHAT? NO redbankgreen NEWSLETTER?
Apologies to redbankgreen newsletter subscribers: the daily email hasn’t gone out for two days because of technical issues.
RED BANK: TIRED OF SKEETERS?
RED BANK: Tired of mosquito bites every summer? Monmouth County has a free program to help eliminate skeeter breeding grounds.