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White supremacist group distributes racist fliers

ReligionNewsBlog.com • Wednesday August 13, 2003

White supremacist group distributes racist fliers in Eagle, site of Kobe Bryant case
Associated Press, Aug. 12, 2003
http://www.sfgate.com/
JON SARCHE, Associated Press

Racist fliers were scattered Tuesday on lawns and windshields in the town where Los Angeles Lakers star Kobe Bryant is to go on trial on sexual assault charges.

A white supremacist group acknowledged leaving the fliers — headlined “Don’t have sex with blacks” — and said they were in response to the Bryant case.

“We’re concerned about areas such as Eagle County, where they have a relatively small number of blacks,” Erich Gliebe, a spokesman for West Virginia-based National Alliance, said in a telephone interview.

He said other fliers would be distributed as the case continues.

Earlier, Eagle County sheriff’s spokeswoman Kim Andree said deputies were investigating, but did not believe the fliers were related to the case against Bryant. She did not return a telephone message Tuesday night after Gliebe’s comments.

Bryant, who is black, is charged with assaulting a white 19-year-old hotel worker at a resort in nearby Edwards in June. He has said the sex was consensual.

The fliers, beyond the headline, accused three black men of lying about carrying HIV when they slept with white women.

The National Alliance was founded by the late William Pierce, author of the racist novel “The Turner Diaries” that figured prominently in the Oklahoma City bombing case.

FBI spokeswoman Ann Atanasio said the agency was monitoring the situation but taking no action.

“There is no threat contained in them,” she said of the fliers. “This is apparently a common tactic used by the National Alliance.”

Andree would not say whether the National Alliance or similar groups had distributed fliers in Eagle before. She said she did not know how many fliers had been left.

The fliers listed a Denver-area phone number that is answered by a recorded message touting white supremacy. The man on the recording identifies himself as Pierce.

Roxie Deane, mayor of the community of 3,500, called the fliers “totally unacceptable,” adding she received two herself.

Mark Potok, spokesman for the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors white supremacist groups, said the National Alliance often distributes such fliers.

“I think they see that the Kobe Bryant case is getting very different reactions from white America and black America,” Potok said.

In December, fliers urging people to join the racist group were scattered throughout Colorado Springs. And in February 2002, similar fliers bearing the alliance’s name were left in neighborhoods in Lakewood, a Denver suburb.