Janet Elkins and many of her neighbors are “up in arms” after receiving hate messages thrown on their lawns Wednesday night and Thursday morning.
Elkins is a resident of The Farm at Timberlake, which is a home community located off of Highway 707.
The messages, which were antisemitic in nature, were placed in a clear-plastic baggie filled with some type of pellets, Elkins said. The person dropped off a bunch of the baggies in the community, which has about 300 homes, Elkins said.
The baggies with the messages are similar to those that have been found in neighborhoods across Horry County in 2022 and this year. 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.
A few people got them last week as well, Elkins said. Neighbors have reported the incident to police.
Mikayla Moskov, spokesperson with Horry County Police, said by text Friday that police are aware of the flyers that seem to be circulating both locally and nationally.
“Those who receive them are encouraged to throw them away,” Moskov said in the text. “Those who feel compelled to submit a police report are encouraged to do so online rather than through dispatch.”
Elkins didn’t open the baggie, but instead threw it in the trash.
Jennifer Sugg was appalled when she found the messages on her lawn. She received two of them – the first about 5:50 p.m. Wednesday and again Thursday morning.
Sugg said most neighbors have cameras on their homes, and the person can be seen about 4 a.m. Thursday “throwing more BS on people’s lawns.”
The folded papers in the baggies contain rhetoric and propaganda against Jewish people, as well as mention of abortion. It’s not clear what the pellets are.
Sugg knows of at least one Jewish family that lives in the neighborhood.
Both Elkins and Sugg said the neighborhood is full of families and children, and the community is like a family.
A message left Friday with D.R. Horton, the home builder for the community, was not immediately returned.
People are angry, especially that this has been going on for years in the area and nationwide, Sugg said.
“I feel very violated by that,” Sugg said about the messages. “How dare they throw this in our lawn.”
In July, a Myrtle Beach man was arrested for littering hate messages across a Murrells Inlet neighborhood. Jamin Christian Fite, 47, was charged with two counts of littering. He was released the same day after paying a $200 fine, according to jail records.
Officers observed Fite throw clear plastic baggies out of the passenger side window, according to a police report. When confronted, the officer observed “black duffel bags containing a large quantity of clear plastic baggies with paper and pellets inside,” the incident report says. The two black duffel bags contained about 791 plastic baggies, according to the report.