Activists and local officials held a press conference in Burlington Saturday morning after a Ku Klux Klan poster was found on the door of a member of the Black Lives Matter movement.
The activist has chosen to remain anonymous. But at the rally, Jocellyn Harvey said she also got a poster in the mail on Thursday. At first she thought it was a horrible prank. When she learned about the second poster, she had her mother call the police.
“It’d be great if they caught the person. But the person knows that people are talking about this, that they cannot go around putting these up and if they continue to do so they will be called out and potentially found,” Harvey said.
Peace and Justice Center board member Jas Wheeler says it’s important to hold those responsible accountable.
"Communities of color in Vermont, people of color in Vermont have so few safe spaces here. And so when the safety of your home is really violated by something like this, I think it’s important that we hold BPD accountable and we hold our community members accountable to keep us people of color safe," Wheeler said.
Burlington Police say a detective is investigating the case and at this time no one is in danger. Chief Brandon de Pozo said they are still trying to determine whether a crime was committed.
“Every incident that is motivated by bias in any way will get a full investigation by my police department,” del Pozo said. “We want to make sure that we’ve exhausted every single one of [the] standings of the law before we say it’s not a crime.”
This posted was updated at 2:30 p.m. on 10/31/15 with quotes from the press conference.
