JACKSONVILLE - Months after numerous neighborhoods around Jacksonville were flooded with fliers for the Ku Klux Klan, more fliers popped up Sunday morning in San Marco and Riverside.
Melissa Rice started her day by walking out to her porch to play her guitar and found the fliers in yards throughout her neighborhood.
"That’s completely unacceptable. I’m not with bigotry or anything like that at all. Can you believe that would happen around here? I don’t put anything past anybody but that’s insane," Rice said.
The fliers give a phone number directing callers to what's called a KKK hotline. The hotline takes you to a voicemail to leave a message if you’re interested in the KKK.
Fliers were distributed late in 2015. News4Jax reporter Scott Johnson sat down with a man who identified himself as Grand Dragon Ken. He said at the time the KKK was in the beginning stages of a recruitment drive to get people to join.
"We've been laying in wait. Time sprung up and we decided to take action," Ken said.
Now the fliers are back and residents are not happy.
"We have the most diverse neighborhood, I thought," Rice said.
The Jacksonville Sheriff's Office is aware of the trend. It does not treat the fliers as a crime.
News4Jax crime analyst Gil Smith says unless there’s violence or some sort of vandalism involved the fliers won’t meet the threshold of a hate crime. But he said the KKK has been raising its profile in recent months from states as far away as California, Mississippi and Kansas.
