Antisemitic signs and flyers posted outside of a Browns Valley Road residence in Napa Valley have drawn numerous complaints from Napans and several reports to the Napa Police Department this week. But the police have said they won’t do anything about the current signage and flyers, and they haven’t done anything about past signs there, because the messages are protected by the First Amendment.
“The message was reviewed by the Napa Police Department and assessed by the Napa County District Attorney’s Office,” Napa police chief Jennifer Gonzales said in a Wednesday email. “It was determined to be Constitutionally protected speech. Like other times when the message was written in a manner that provoked energy from others, we cannot and will not take unlawful law enforcement action against First Amendment protected speech.”
As of Wednesday morning, the sign outside of the Browns Valley Road residence reads: “Take One.” The flyers appear to be lightly edited versions of antisemitic flyers previously distributed around Florida and several other communities around the country, which accuse 10 of Disney’s executives of being Jewish and grooming children for sexual abuse; it includes pictures of each of those executives with a Star of David pasted on their forehead. Unlike those flyers, the Napa flyers additionally claim “Walt Disney World to Host largest LGBTQ+ Conference in the World” and accuse the Disney executives of being “Jews behind the curtain.”
NGO StopAntisemitism, a leading watchdog organization combating antisemitism, has contributed the antisemitic flyer to the Goyim Defense League (GDL). The GDL is a group of white supremacists led by Jon Minadeo II. The group travels the country harassing Jewish communities with antisemitic flyer drops.
The resident in question — Donald William Snyder, 84 — has been putting up controversial signs near his Browns Valley Road residence for years. The signs over the years have stated Snyder’s right-wing political views, much of the time based on current news topics, and have included false information connected to various conspiracy theories.