‘Deplorable and disgusting.’ Fresno neighborhood littered with hate speech on flyers
Hate-filled flyers were thrown onto driveways in a Fresno neighborhood on Friday, angering residents and initiating a police investigation.
Jeffrey Hess said he was pushing his 20-month-old child in a stroller and walking his Dachshund-Beagle mix named Bigby when he noticed flyers and mulch in plastic bags strewn about his neighborhood near Fruit and Shields avenues.
He looked closer and saw anti-Semitic, homophobic and misogynistic rhetoric on the printed flyers.
“It doesn’t get much more Nazi than this,” the Fresno resident of 10 years said. “These fascists aren’t welcome in my neighborhood. I find it deplorable and disgusting.”
The flyers were not all duplicates of each other. They carried a number of different hateful messages and propaganda that attacked Jews, people who are transgender and other minority groups.
Hess said he collected as many as he could that were still sitting outside on sidewalks and driveways, saying he was shocked to see such flyers strewn about his neighborhood by hatemongers.
“I don’t like these people, and I don’t want them in my neighborhood,” he said.
Lt. Bill Dooley said Fresno police the same day fielded reports from residents in the central policing district who found flyers with hate speech written on them.
“Of the flyers recovered so far, there are no direct threats to any members of our community,” Dooley said in an email. “Rather the papers contain general hate propaganda and unfounded conspiracy theories. This is currently being investigated as a hate incident.”
Police responded to the area to collect flyers and investigate, he said.
Anyone with information on the individuals who left the papers were encouraged by police to contact the Fresno Police Department at 559-621-7000.
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