Fifth Avenue Forum

At least two municipalities in Somerset County appear to have been targeted for recruitment over the weekend by the Ku Klux Klan.

Somerset Borough police Chief Randy Cox said that since Sunday his department has been notified about two Klan-labeled notes that have been found in driveways.

The notes, which have different racial messages, were found in sandwich bags filled with birdseed.

Cox said the seed is apparently used to weight the bags.

“I’m guessing that unless there’s some symbolic intent that I’m missing, that the birdseed is something that they can drive by and toss in people’s driveways,” he said.

Similarly to Somerset, Berlin police Sgt. Rodney Norman said that two of the birdseed notes were found in his borough.

“This morning I had a complaint from another resident who found one laying in the yard of (a business),” Norman said. “I guess she found it yesterday.”

One of those notes was given to the Daily American by a resident who wished to remain anonymous in the newspaper.

That note starts off with “SHOCKING CRIME FACTS THAT COULD SAVE YOUR LIFE.”

Several statistics unverified by the Daily American about black people were listed. A number for a national hotline is listed on the note, which has a North Carolina area code. When called, a voice identifying as “Google” asks for a name. A voicemail recruitment message identifying as the “Loyal White Nights of the Ku Klux Klan” then played.

The note ends with a picture of a Klansman on horseback with colonial and Confederate flags.

Cox said that although the content of the notes is “distressing,” there is no crime being committed, other than littering.

“In the ones I’ve looked at, there are no threats. They are just stating their version of the facts,” he said. “It doesn’t seem to be targeted at (the people who received the notes).”

He said that to be considered an offense under the Pennsylvania hate crime statute, the notes must have intended targets, with intent to intimidate.

“Everything in the printed material itself is free speech,” he said.

Norman had the same assessment.

“Other than littering, I can’t think of anything to charge them with,” he said, adding that there is no suspect. “We haven’t had anybody tell us they saw somebody.”

The notes don’t seem specific to Somerset County, either. Media reports from various times this year indicate similar occurrences with birdseed notes across Pennsylvania and neighboring states.

Cox was aware of other distributions.

“We did look into it and there are occurrences of this happening in at least Virginia,” he said. “This is about the most unique way of spreading hate that I’ve seen in a long time.”

Norman said that although nothing shocks him anymore, he doesn’t recall a Klan presence in Berlin during his time as an officer.

“It’s not something you see every day, and, for Berlin, that’s the first I’ve ever seen something like that,” he said. “It looked like a recruiting.

“I’m going to be looking into it a little more just to see if they had somebody coming through the area, advertising. Because they need to go somewhere else. People don’t need to see that.”