Residents of a Florida town received dozens of antisemitic flyers over the Labor Day weekend, prompting police warnings for them to discard the hate speech.
People in the south-eastern Florida community of Wellington early on Monday said that they found more than 100 plastic bags containing antisemitic propaganda as well as an unknown pellet.
The bags were largely found in residents’ driveways, the Palm Beach Post reported, and they contained flyers making false claims that Jewish people were responsible for the Covid pandemic, among other antisemitic conspiracy theories.
Police departments in other Florida counties say that their residents found similar baggies.
The West Palm Beach police department told the local news outlet WPBF that plastic bags were also found in at least one of that county’s neighborhoods.
Okeechobee county sheriff’s office deputies said in a Facebook post that more than 100 plastic baggies were also discovered there.
“If you find a packet, it is suggested that you use a plastic bag or gloves to pick it up and throw it away. Please do not attempt to open it. Discard it immediately,” the sheriff’s office said on Facebook.
A spokesperson for the Palm Beach county sheriff’s office said “no direct threats were made” and that the matter was still being investigated.
As of Monday morning, no arrests had been made in connection with the case.
Residents in other neighborhoods have found similar flyers distributed over the past year, WSVN reported.
In January, a group of four people distributed nearly 150 baggies with antisemitic flyers in West Palm Beach, with the bags also filled with animal pellets and wood shavings, WPBF News reported.
A subsequent group – all identified as out-of-state residents – also distributed identical antisemitic messaging in plastic bags and received littering citations from Palm Beach police.
The latest case in Florida comes amid a rise in hate crimes in the state.
Between 2020 and 2022, extremism and hate crimes rose in Florida by 71%, according to a report from the Anti-Defamation League.
The report noted that extremists in Florida were coordinating with each other to carry out said hate crimes.
