JACKSONVILLE, Fla. – Flyers for the Ku Klux Klan are being found thrown on properties in neighborhoods around Jacksonville Friday night, prompting outrage from neighbors and a police investigation.
The fliers are in bags filled with rice to weight them down, and witnesses said a champagne colored truck was seen in one neighborhood throwing the bags onto people's properties.
Kelly Ramdial and her husband got one, and they went to work gathering a lot of the bags that were thrown throughout their Mandarin neighborhood and put them in the trash. Ramdial said she was outraged to get one.
"I saw a truck go by, throwing things in people's yards and saw what it was, and it was extremely offensive. A flyer asking people to join the KKK. We were worried at first, because we're an interracial couple and didn't know if we were being targeted," Ramdial said.
The flyers have hit a lot of the city, in one instance prompting an email chain to be sent to neighbors of the San Jose Forest area saying, "Please be advised that someone is driving around the Forest distributing flyers with an invitation to join the KKK."
"We don't want that kind of trouble in our neighborhood. We don't need anybody provoking anything. We really, we don't have any issues here, we all get along and we don't want that kind of activity," Ramdial said.
Calling the phone number on the flier, referred to as the Klan hotline, leads to a message stating, "Always remember, if it ain't white, it ain't right. White power."
News4Jax Crime and Safety Analyst Gil Smith said that when it comes to the question of whether or not distributing the fliers was legal, he said it's hard to say.
He said it is possible that it could violate a Florida statute against furthering the interest of a criminal gang. Smith said the statute lists hate groups, like the KKK, as falling under that category.