Leaflets found in Ukiah blame Jews for NYC attack

Fliers blaming the Jews for the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks were found littering car windshields in a Ukiah neighborhood last week.

Police are currently investigating the leafletting incident -- which took place near Oak Manor Elementary School on or around Nov. 5 -- as a hate crime.

The main suspect is a former student at Ukiah's South Valley High School who is known by school officials and area police to have an interest in white supremacist activities.

"If this was simply a case of circulating literature, [the perpetrator] would have First Amendment protections," said Sgt. John McCutcheon, an investigator with the Ukiah Police Department who is working on the case. "But because we have the added circumstances of this being connected to our schools, our concern is much greater."

The flier, which bears a National Socialist Movement emblem in the bottom lefthand corner, includes a photo of the World Trade Center in flames and attributes "the anguish and hatred of the world" to the Jews. It urges people to "Dump the Jews" and join the NSM.

The post office box and e-mail address for the Ukiah-area NSM are stamped on the back of the flier.

A similar NSM flier, stamped with a phone number with a 415 area code, was found on a Bay Area BART train.

Kay Heath, assistant superintendent of the Ukiah Unified School District, said the leafletting incident was upsetting to her and to students at area schools. She said this is the first incident of its kind that she has seen since joining the district five years ago.

"I was aware of the possibility of something like this happening, but I hadn't seen anything up until now," said Heath, who also serves on Mendocino County's policy council on hate crimes and hate-motivated incidents.

"Even though they were not necessarily on our campuses, kids can see those things -- and they did."

One student at South Valley High School, for instance, found the flier and was visibly shaken, said South Valley principal Jeanne Yttreness. The student came in with the rolled-up flier and told her, "I'm really upset; this was all over my neighborhood. Isn't that disgusting?"

Yttreness notified the police and the district superintendent shortly thereafter.

Of the 2,000 students at the 10th- through 12th-grade school none are Jewish to Yttreness' knowledge. But the school often provides tolerance and hate-crime dialogue through its social studies department.

Heath, whose hate crime council recently received a $40,000 grant for tolerance training, plans to step up the efforts at all area schools. She has been working toward that goal with the Central Pacific region of the Anti-Defamation League.

Since the terrorist attacks, this type of anti-Semitic backlash has been a major concern of the local ADL. The agency's executive director, Jonathan Bernstein, said several incidents have been reported to him since Sept. 11, including:

*A threatening phone message made to a local Jewish organization.

*Anti-Semitic graffiti found scrawled on Market Street walls in San Francisco's Financial District.

*A Jewish man in El Cerrito claimed that his yarmulke was knocked off his head by an unknown individual accusing Jews of perpetrating the terrorist attacks.

"We are probably going to see more and more of these hate groups latching onto this as a theme," Bernstein said.