Berkeley Police Department and City Council Denounce Distribution of Anti-Semitic Messages
BERKELEY (CBS SF) -- The Berkeley Police Department and Berkeley City Council on Monday released a joint statement condemning the recent distribution of hundreds plastic sandwich bags filled with anti-Semitic messages.
The statement issued addressed the hundreds of homes in the North Berkeley hills where the sandwich bags containing the hateful messages were found on doorsteps on Sunday. Police said the messages were delivered at random in that neighborhood by "a small, fringe White Supremacist extremist group that targets Jewish communities as well as other minority groups throughout the Bay Area."
The release noted that multiple cities across the U.S. have "been hit with identical anti-Semitic screeds blaming the COVID pandemic on the Jewish people."
"As the center of the free-speech movement, Berkeley has always supported people's rights under the first amendment. But let's be clear -- the Berkeley City Council and our community soundly reject and condemn ANY hate filled messages and any inference to discrimination of any kind to any person or group," the statement read.
It went on to assure Berkeley's Jewish residents that the community would stand together "to reject anti-Semitic messages and all forms of hate speech."
The Berkeley Police Department is prioritizing the incident and actively investigating the case. Anyone with information or camera footage of related to this hate-incident is asked to call the Berkeley Police Department at (510) 981-5900.
The release also noted that the city's "United Against Hate" campaign has distributed posters with that message to all Berkeley Fire Department fire stations. Residents are invited to pick up a poster to display in their front yard or window.