For the second time in four months, a white supremacist group has distributed fliers in an Omaha neighborhood.
It's joy Cecilia Smith wants to spread this time of year, so when a small plastic bag brimming with hate showed up on her driveway Saturday morning in the area of 108th and Fort, she was not pleased. "This is just ridiculous." Karen Menghini was equally disturbed. "I just found it very hurtful, very hurtful that they did this."
A group called The National Alliance, the largest neo-Nazi white supremacist organization in the country is behind the fliers, which claims crime, both violent and non-violent, is disproportionately committed by blacks and we can do something about it by taking a stand now. The fliers mention the September shooting of Omaha Police Sgt. Jason Pratt, who was white, by Albert Rucker, who was black. "I think it's awful that they would use Officer Pratt as a point to justify this."
Anti-Defamation League director Bob Wolfson said this is the way the racist group works. "What they're trying to do as many hate mongers do is take advantage of an issue that is in the local community and move it to something that it wasn't. Here's a group that sees a white officer and a black perpetrator and wants to make it a whole indication, condemnation of the black race." Wolfson said he's concerned to see more activity from The National Alliance. In August, the group left anti-immigration fliers in Millard. "This is a Cadillac of hate groups, a group that when they are out in the community, they wear ties and jackets. These are people who include doctors and lawyers and community leaders in their midst." Menghini wants the group to know their hate propaganda has no place in Omaha. "The generalization is horrible."
The National Alliance has been around since the early 1970s and recently the group established a phone number in Omaha. Channel 6 News called the number and got a pre-recorded message voiced by the group's founder William Pierce, who passed away last year.
The Anti-Defamation League would like to see whoever is distributing the fliers to come forward instead of delivering leaflets anonymously in the dark. Some of Sgt. Pratt's fellow officers were disturbed by the fliers and know that he would not have wanted his name associated with this type of message.
