ROSWELL, Ga. — A metro Atlanta neighborhood hit with hateful messages has members of the community cleaning up and police working to figure out who left them.
Channel 2′s Michael Seiden is speaking to Roswell residents about hundreds of antisemitic flyers put out in people’s driveways on Sunday.
The Roswell Police Department confirmed to Channel 2 Action News on Sunday that the distribution of the flyers was under investigation in case of potential criminal intent.
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In recent months, similar flyers have repeatedly been put out across the metro area, including in Sandy Springs, Dunwoody, Cherokee County, and East Atlanta.
Channel 2 Action News spoke with a young woman off camera, who asked not to be identified.
She told Seiden that she collected probably more than 200 flyers, showing him a trash bag full of them.
People living in the Roswell community are working with police, hoping they can track down those responsible for putting the flyers in people’s driveways.
Chana Offsey, the daughter of holocaust survivors, fought back tears Monday while speaking with Seiden, reading through the nasty and hateful lies about Jews printed across the hundreds of flyers.
“Shame on them! Al my family got killed in the Holocaust,” Offsey said. “Shame on them!”
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The flyers were dumped in driveways and lawns of homeowners in the Roswell neighborhood.
“Only my mom and grandma and my father survived!” Offsey continued. “That’s horrible to bring back these memories!”
Right now, Roswell police are calling this an ongoing investigation. A spokesperson told Channel 2 Action News that they began their investigation after homeowners in the Edenwilde subdivision found the flyers early on Sunday morning.
Neighbors in the community had strong reactions to the flyers.
“I think it’s ridiculous,” Ross Newberry, a neighbor, said. “Let people live their lives, you know let people believe what they want to believe as long as they’re not hurting anyone else. It’s unfortunate. I wish I could maybe have fingerprints on a bag to give to someone.”
It’s not the first time Channel 2 Action News has reported on these types of flyers.
Back in February, similar flyers started to show up in Sandy Springs and Dunwoody neighborhoods.
Georgia lawmakers considered a bill that would have made crimes motivated by antisemitism part of the state’s hate crime laws, but the bill failed to pass before the end of the legislative session.
Georgia Representative Esther Panitch, a Democrat and the only Jewish member of the Georgia House, spoke out against the hate earlier this year. She was a recipient of the flyers as well.
Speaking with Channel 2 Action News previously, Panitch said this type of hate was on the rise. She was one of the antisemitism bill’s co-sponsors in the Georgia Assembly.
“Antisemitism is on the rise. I ran because extremism is on the rise, specifically antisemitism is on the rise,” Panitch said at the time.
The bill is expected to be debated again in 2024.
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