Residents who live in the Colonial Beach community were shocked and a little disturbed when they saw a KKK recruitment flyer posted front and center on their newspapers.
Betty Tate Thompson, a resident of Westmoreland County, VA, told CBS 6 the neighborhood recognized the hate-filled flyer when looking at a story in the Westmoreland newspaper.
“They posted the whole flyer as if they were giving them free advertising… It even had the number on flyer to contact the head of the KKK. Which I thought was totally ridiculous,” Thompson exclaimed.
Police Chief Danny Plott admitted he too was startled by the publishing company’s decision to put the ad on the front page of the newspaper. He confessed to being the person who sent the flyer to Westmoreland News, but to inform them of the racial event, not for it to be published.
“That kind of shocked me, and I wrote them a very strongly worded email,” Plott said.
The editor apparently responded back and explained to the officer the company’s reasoning for issuing the biased recruitment flyer.
“She explained that she wanted to put it in to show people that those of us in Colonial Beach who may think there’s not racism; there is and I think she didn’t expect for this to blow up the way it did and with this outcome,” Plott told CBS.
The officer said many residents have called the police department in outrage and told officials to “come and get this crap.”
One upset citizen remarked, “They are domestic terrorists… They terrorize communities. Their intent is to get their America back, but you have to think, how are they going to get their America back?”
(CBS 6)
The editor placed this disclaimer on the front of the page, “Westmoreland News in no way condones or supports the content or message of this flyer, nor does it condone or support any branch of the Loyal White Knights, or the KKK,” but one resident said it’s not enough.
“At this point, the flyer doesn’t even matter. It’s on the front page of the newspaper for everybody to see,” the upset resident told the news source.
