Prosecutor: ‘Very troubling’ KKK fliers don’t rise to level of being a crime

By KODY FISHER
WISH-TV | wishtv.com

Police in Carmel know who disseminated Ku Klux Klan fliers around the Hamilton County city earlier this week.

The Carmel Police Department says the person who passed out those flyers lives out of state, and what he did not rise to the level of a crime.

The message in the fliers mirrors a topic that was a hot button issue during the presidential election: immigration.

Hamilton County Chief Deputy Prosecutor Joshua Kocher told I-Team 8, “While these flyers do promote a message that we do not support and that we find very troubling, and everything that the Ku Klux Klan represents, there aren’t threats contained in these flyers, and certainly not threats targeted to any specific individuals that would give us the rise to charge someone with the crime of intimidation.”

There are also First Amendment protections for what the person did.

“One of the bedrocks of our society is the First Amendment to the United States Constitution, which allows freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and so while we might abhor the ideas promoted, that doesn’t mean we can treat as criminals people who put forward those ideas.”

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) Midwest says attacking minorities with hateful propaganda is not the way to solve problems.

Suzanne Rothenberg, a spokesperson for ADL, said, “However you feel about social causes like, in this instance, immigration, it is never acceptable to intimidate your neighbors by littering hate speech in our communities. When our neighbors get targeted for the problems we’re facing in society we’re giving up our power to actually solve these problems.”

Carmel Police Department issued a statement: “The Carmel Police Department is committed to defending the safety of all our citizens and we condemn hateful speech or actions.”

This story was originally published by WISH-TV at wishtv.com/news/i-team-8/carmel-ku-klux-klan-fliers.