Supremacist group rears ugly head

Fliers from a white supremacist group denouncing Martin Luther King Jr. were found in neighborhoods around Olympic High School earlier this week, marking the third time in less than a year that such an incident has occurred in Central Kitsap.

Distributed by an unknown member or members of the West Virginia-based National Alliance, the fliers were placed in cat-litter-filled bags and thrown into yards.

“We don’t know who it is, but we’re suspecting someone who is a member of the group or heavily influenced by it and why they’re here for job-related reasons or what we don’t know,” said Sheriff’s deputy Scott Wilson. “So far we’ve had two complaints, but people are wise to it and know what it is.”

Wilson said to just throw the papers away.

In February 2003, fliers were found in the Parkwood East neighborhood which prompted a meeting with residents and the Kitsap County Human Rights Council and Kitsap Human Rights Network. The end result was a neighborhood picnic. More fliers were later found in neighborhoods west and south of Silverdale in early October 2003.

An interview with the National Alliance last year said the fliers were a “seed” in an “awareness building campaign” and direct people to the multimedia group’s Web site.

But one resident of the Firglade neighborhood wasn’t happy to discover the group’s message hanging in her fruit tree on Tuesday after coming home from a shopping trip.

“I’ve heard about it, but I’ve never seen any literature before,” Sandy Ulsh said. “I was shocked to find it,” at first believing the plastic bag contained drugs.

Ulsh called the flier “an affront to humanity.

“This is one of the drawbacks of living in a country with free speech. Why can’t we draw the line to inciting hatred?”

The Sheriff’s Department has repeatedly said they cannot prevent the fliers from being distributed though Parkwood East residents wanted to charge the perpetrators with littering.

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