Antisemitic and anti-LGBTQ+ flyers dropped off at over 100 Huntington Beach homes
To Steve Shepard and his wife, the Pride flag, which flies outside their Huntington Beach home, is a symbol of acceptance.
However, when Shepard woke up Wednesday morning he found a message of hate in front of his home.
"I'm hoping it wasn't a poop bag," he said. "Turns out it was a poop bag, filled with different poop."
Shepard found a bag stuffed with rocks and a flyer containing anti-semitic messaging that was also aimed at the LGBTQ+ community. When he reported this to the police he learned that he was not the only one that received this message. More than 100 homes had the exact flyer dropped off in their driveway.
"One of our neighbors was going around and picking them up so we all wouldn't see what it was," said resident Mary Ann Celinder.
The person that created the flyer put a message on the bottom saying the leaflets were "distributed randomly without malicious intent."
"That's a cowardly act and it's a disgusting act," said Mayor Tony Strickland. "There's no place for it in Huntington Beach."
The Huntington Beach Police Department has started an investigation into the incident and is searching for whoever dropped off the hateful flyers. Last year, a similar flier was found in the city.
The leaflets appeared a day after a contentious school board meeting where parents demanded administrators fire an Edison High School teacher that showed students a Pride video.
"I asked the police chief and he sees no connection between the two," said Strickland.
Huntington Beach recently passed an ordinance limiting which flags fly on city property, meaning the Pride flag was banned.
