Residents in several areas of Floyd County and in the Old East Rome neighborhood reported that someone had thrown out flyers containing antisemitic, anti-LGBTQ and racist messaging late Friday and early Saturday.
Both Rome and Floyd County police say they’ve received reports of people finding plastic bags containing flyers with antisemitic and anti-LGBTQ messaging early Saturday.
Floyd County Assistant Police Chief Tom Ewing said whoever distributed the flyers seemed to hit large areas of the county indiscriminately. Residents along Chulio Road all the way into Shannon in north Floyd County reported finding the flyers in their yard, he said.
The advocacy organization fighting antisemitism - StopAntisemitism - has attributed the antisemitic flyers to the Goyim Defense League (GDL). The league travels the country distributing these hateful flyers targeted Jewish communities.
Just this week, the white supremacist group 'Goyim Defense League' (GDL) has targeted the following areas with their vile antisemitic flyer campaigns:
— StopAntisemitism (@StopAntisemites) June 23, 2023
- Luzerne County, PA
- Berks County, PA
- St. Louis, MO
- White Lake Township, MI
- Marietta, GA
- Sacramento, CA
- Chico, CA… pic.twitter.com/dCZhMPbuM7
Rome Police Department Assistant Chief Debbie Burnett said the reports in the city primarily came from the Old East Rome neighborhood.
A person in Old East Rome captured video of people in a small white or silver sedan tossing out the flyers around 12:28 a.m. Police are investigating.
The bags containing the flyers also contained an organic substance, possibly deer pellets, likely to give them weight. Some residents expressed fear that the contents of the bag contained rat poison, but that could not be confirmed over the weekend.
The flyers contained language laced with conspiracy driven phrases like “diversity means fewer White people, inclusion means the exclusion of White people” as well false information about the life span of the LGBTQ population and attempts to link that community with increased risks of child molestation and sexually transmitted diseases.
Relying heavily on antisemitic tropes, the flyers appear to all come from one source, Goyim TV.
“We non-Jews have been targeted relentlessly for decades and centuries... This PSA is about a Jewish mafia that had hijacked our country,” one flyer reads.