By DAN TOMASELLO
LYNNFIELD — The Police Department has launched an investigation into a white supremacist group after it left racist pamphlets at several homes last weekend.
Town Administrator Rob Dolan informed the Villager in a statement that the white supremacist group dropped the pamphlets at homes on five streets during the overnight hours of Friday, Sept. 22 and Saturday, Sept. 23. The incident occurred two days before Yom Kippur.
“These pamphlets contain a message from a known white supremacist group,” Dolan stated. “This organization has been active in the region. Lynnfield Police are investigating the incident, and are in communication with our regional law enforcement partners and have received information through the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).”
Dolan said the white supremacist group’s name will not be released publicly because town officials “refuse to give them a further platform for their hate.”
“On behalf of Select Board members Joe Connell, Dick Dalton and Phil Crawford, Police Chief Nick Secatore, Superintendent Kristen Vogel, the School Committee and all in town administration, we completely condemn and stand unified against the actions of this white supremacist organization and its message, and denounce and stand against all discrimination of any kind in our community,” Dolan stated.
There have sadly been a number of racist and anti-Semitic incidents that have occurred in town over the past three years. Town officials condemned racist graffiti that was discovered at the Beaver Dam Brook Reservation in late March. A group of residents and DPW employees discovered the “racist and inappropriate graffiti” while removing trash and other debris from the Beaver Dam Brook Reservation.
A spray-painted swastika, the name “Hitler” and an obscene image of male genitalia were discovered on the back of a shed at Glen Meadow Park in July 2021. A group of eighth-graders called two children a racial slur at MarketStreet in June 2021.
Racist graffiti was discovered on a stream crossing in the Beaver Dam Brook Reservation in June 2020. There were several residents who had their Black Lives Matter signs stolen and property vandalized in the summer and fall of 2020.
Police Chief Nick Secatore informed the Villager in an email earlier this year that Summer Street residents Joshua Simpson and Stephen Smith both pled guilty in November 2021 to “various charges in court” related to acts of racially-motivated vandalism at a Summer Street family’s home in the summer and fall of 2020.
According to a report from the Anti-Defamation League that was released in May, anti-Semitic incidents increased 41 percent from 2021 to 2022. There were 108 incidents reported to the ADL in 2021 and 152 in 2022.
“That increase followed a similar spike between 2020 and 2021, when incidents leapt from 73 to 108 incidents,” the ADL’s report stated.
The report also revealed that the ADL “documented 34 white supremacist events in the state in 2021 and 2022, including protests, meetings, flash demonstrations, banner drops and marches.”
“White supremacist propaganda distributions are on the rise in Massachusetts,” the ADL’s report states. “In 2022, ADL documented 465 instances of white supremacist propaganda distribution across the state, an increase of 71 percent from 2021 (272).”
