(Updated at 3:40 p.m.) At a time when the country is still reeling from the mass shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh, ARLnow received another reminder that the kind of ideology that inspired the shooter is still very much active in the U.S. and a part of Arlington’s history.
The neo-Nazi group New Order, which formed in Arlington but is now based in Milwaukee, hand-addressed a mailing containing various flyers and Swastika-adorned propaganda to ARLnow.com’s former Clarendon office.
The mailing was sent from Florida prior to this past weekend’s mass shooting, according to the postmark. There was no explanation for why it was sent; Arlington Sun Gazette editor Scott McCaffrey said no such mailing had been sent to the newspaper.
Among the flyers in the mailing was one advertising the “Lincoln Rockwell Centennial Anniversary.” Rockwell was born in March 1918 and assassinated at the Dominion Hills Shopping Center in Arlington on Aug. 25, 1967.
Local Investment Firm CEO Arrested — Todd Hitt, the founder of Falls Church-based Kiddar Capital, was arrested by the FBI and charged with securities fraud last week. Hitt was developing a new company headquarters in Falls Church. He made headlines as a young housing developer in the 1990s for clashing with Arlington neighbors while building what residents dubbed “McMansions.” [Tysons Reporter]
More White Nationalist Posters Spotted — A reader says he saw more white nationalists posters around Clarendon over the weekend. The reader, who wished to remain anonymous, says he removed the posters after photographing them. [Twitter]
New 1100 Wilson Blvd Rooftop — “Monday Properties hosted a VIP event for real estate brokers Wednesday evening to showcase the 6,200-square-foot indoor-outdoor space atop the 31-story building, part of the two-building The Towers. It is being unveiled as landlords in Rosslyn and across Greater Washington seek to up their communal spaces to appeal to tenants who increasingly want more than just office space to attract and hang onto employees.” [Washington Business Journal]
Bamboo Removal This Week — “Arlington County contractors will be removing bamboo in Benjamin Banneker Park during the week of Oct. 8. Depending on weather conditions, treatment is expected to conclude by Friday, Oct. 12.” [Twitter]
Maryjane Arrested for Car Theft, Weed — “Police caught a woman named Maryjane in Ballston who they say stole a car in Fairfax County — and they also hit her with a marijuana charge.” [Patch]
Windfall for Ballston Company — “Arlington-based AvalonBay Communities Inc. expects to clear north of $450 million from the sale of a majority stake in five Manhattan apartment communities.” [Washington Business Journal]
2000th Morning Notes Post — This is Morning Notes post No. 2000. ARLnow.com launched in January 2010.
Monkey Maze fun houses are used by other traveling carnival companies, though photos posted online show different illustrations on the front of the trailer. A Google search did not turn up any other references to the Monkey Maze and accusations of racism.
The fair runs through Sunday on the grounds of the Thomas Jefferson Community Center (125 S. Old Glebe Road).
Photos courtesy David Rosenblatt (photo illustration by ARLnow.com)
(Updated Aug. 20 at 2:30 p.m.) An Arlington woman says she was weaving through the construction at the Ballston Quarter development when she saw something she could hardly believe.
Taylor, who requested that ARLnow withhold her last name due to safety concerns, was bound for the Sport and Health gym early Tuesday morning (Aug. 14), when she spotted a group of workers near the former mall’s elevators. One of them, she noted, had Nazi symbols tattooed all over his arms and neck.
“I was just surprised a company would allow their worker to wear a tank top with such tattoos on his neck and arms,” she told ARLnow.
When her workout was wrapped up, Taylor, who is black, made her frustration with the situation clear to a Ballston Quarter employee nearby. She then grabbed her phone and opened up Twitter to make it clear just how she felt about what she saw.
Because she mentioned the construction company overseeing the work at Ballston Quarter, Clark Construction, in the tweet she says she soon heard from the company that they were investigating the situation, but otherwise heard nothing.
Since then, however, the company says it determined that the man Taylor saw was an employee of one of its subcontractors at the site. A spokeswoman for Clark did not offer additional details on whether it could confirm what Taylor saw, but it seems she was not mistaken.
“Clark Construction became aware of a violation of its anti-harassment policy on a job site in Arlington, Virginia and immediately took steps to investigate,” Brian Abt, division president and CEO for Clark’s Mid-Atlantic region, wrote in a statement. “Clark engaged the subcontractor employee who was involved and has taken appropriate action to resolve the situation.”
A spokeswoman for Clark also did not clarify whether that action included firing or otherwise disciplining the employee involved.
Army-Navy Country Club Employee Alleges Supervisor Used Racial Slurs — A former golf cart attendant at the club claims that one of his bosses repeatedly used racist language to refer to him and former President Barack Obama. It seems the supervisor has been fired, and the club’s employees are receiving sensitivity training. [Falls Church News-Press]
Crystal City Hotel to Host Anti-Muslim Group’s Conference — ACT for America will hold its annual gathering at the Crystal City Hyatt this fall. The group has alleged that Muslims can’t be loyal citizens of the United States and held “anti-Sharia” marches across the country, prompting Muslim groups to call on the hotel to abandon the event. [DCist]
Man Accused of Indecent Exposures Around Rosslyn Previously Convicted in Alexandria — County police arrested Fairfax County resident Santiago Rodriquez Campos on indecent exposure charges Monday, and it seems he’s been convicted on similar charges in the past. Immigration officials also believe he entered the country illegally. [WJLA]
Arlington Police Chief Reviews Restructuring — Chief Jay Farr says all has largely gone smoothly with the county’s restructuring of the department to cope with a staffing crunch, which kicked off in May. The county even has its largest class of recruits ever currently in training. [Arlington Connection]
County First Responders Make a Special Delivery — Arlington medics were hoping to get an expecting mother to a D.C. hospital, but her baby had other plans. They made it to the Virginia Hospital Center in the nick of time. [Twitter]
As white supremacists prepare to march through D.C. this weekend, on the first anniversary of last year’s violent rally in Charlottesville, an Arlington college student hopes to match every step they take through the city by raising money to push back on hate.
Allison Herrity, a Washington-Lee graduate and a rising junior at George Washington University, kicked off the “Stomp Out Hate Walk-A-Thon” ahead of the “Unite the Right 2” rally coming to the city Saturday (Aug. 11).
While the white nationalists participating in the event, led by many of the organizers of the deadly demonstration in Charlottesville, may very well be outnumbered by counter-protesters, Herrity and fellow GW student Kendall Keelen say they wanted to find some way for people across the region to show their opposition to “Unite the Right” without actually heading into D.C. this weekend.
“We see this as a way for individuals who are unable to protest physically for a variety of reasons to make it clear that the actions of these white nationalists are not okay, and will not be accepted here or anywhere,” Herrity told ARLnow via email.
Herrity, who grew up in Ashton Heights and still lives in Arlington, says the proceeds of the fundraiser will go to the Southern Poverty Law Center, a legal advocacy organization dedicated to monitoring hate groups across the country. Herrity and Keelen will accept donations of any size, but the online fundraising site they’ve set up gives people the option to donate “per step” that the rally-goers take through D.C.
They estimate that the group will take roughly 1,700 steps if all goes according to plan and they march from the Foggy Bottom Metro station to Lafayette Park. Herrity said she was inspired by people in the German town of Wunsiedel, who similarly donated money to an anti-extremist organization for every meter neo-Nazi demonstrators marched through the town.
“We would have done a per mile pledge, but the protesters will not even be walking a mile,” Herrity and Keelen wrote on the fundraising page. “But hey, carrying around all that hate must be exhausting.”
So far, the pair have managed to raise just under $1,000, and they’ve set a $5,000 goal for the effort.
Local Leaders Brace for White Supremacist Rally Sunday — “Unite the Right 2,” stemming from last year’s violent demonstration in Charlottesville, comes to D.C. this weekend. Counter-protesters are are set to greet participants, who plan to march from the Foggy Bottom Metro station to Lafayette Park. D.C. and Virginia officials alike have heightened emergency precautions, particularly around Metro stations, as rally participants plan to ride from Vienna into the city. [WTOP]
Federal Court Rejects Airplane Noise Appeal — Some D.C. residents suing over noise generated by Reagan National Airport, a contentious issue among Arlingtonians as well, now have only the U.S. Supreme Court to turn to, after an appeals court tossed out their case last month. Maryland’s attorney general is pursuing a similar case, targeting noise from BWI. [Washington Post]
El Salvadorian Residents Face an Uncertain Future — The Trump administration’s decision to rescind “temporary protected status” for immigrants from El Salvador means that many who’ve settled around Northern Virginia and D.C. are left wondering what comes next. [Washington City Paper]
Korean War Veteran’s Belongings Return to Arlington — Nearly 68 years after an Army medic disappeared in North Korea, the Pentagon arranged an emotional reunion with some of his possessions for his family at a Crystal City hotel. [Washington Post]
A KKK recruitment flier discovered in an East Falls Church neighborhood. (photo via Eliza Thompson)
A KKK recruitment flier discovered in an East Falls Church neighborhood. (photo via Eliza Thompson)
Some residents of an East Falls Church neighborhood say they discovered Ku Klux Klan recruitment fliers full of racist and anti-Semitic language this past weekend.
Eliza Thompson says she discovered a flier sitting at the foot of her driveway on Saturday morning (July 21), placed in a small bag and weighed down with birdseed. She says she quickly learned that several of her neighbors along N. Roosevelt Street also received the fliers, which advertise membership in a group dubbed the “Loyal White Knights.”
“I’m a talker, and I couldn’t even talk after we saw those,” Thompson told ARLnow. “Why did they choose our street, our neighborhood? It just doesn’t make much sense.”
The fliers don’t list where the group is based, with most of the space dedicated to screeds about how Jews control the media or how immigrants are destroying the country, but they do list phone numbers with North Carolina area codes. According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, the Loyal White Knights are active in two different parts of that state, as well as in Maryland and Richmond.
Thompson’s discovery comes less than a month after some Lyon Village residents discovered anti-Semitic fliers in their neighborhood, and other KKK fliers, similarly placed in bags and weighed down with birdseed, turned up in Gainesville and Bristow. A flier for a white supremacist group was also found in Clarendon in late May.
“You wouldn’t expect it in Arlington,” Thompson said. “It’s just not the area you’d think the KKK would be recruiting out of.”
Thompson says some of her neighbors reported the incident to county police, but the neighborhood is also planning a larger response to the fliers’ arrival.
Not only has she ordered 10 signs proclaiming “hate has no home here” that she hopes to distribute, but she’s working with some of her neighbors to hand out baggies of their own, filled with candy and messages about diversity and inclusion.
“Simply being outraged isn’t enough,” Thompson said. “This is real, and I think a lot of white people need to realize the racism non-white Americans face on a regular basis in our country. It’s easy if you live in North Arlington not to pay attention to racism. But it’s there all the time.”
(Updated May 22 at noon) Shana Silver says she was walking along Washington Blvd in Clarendon today (Monday) when she made a disturbing discovery: a flier advertising an Alexandria-based white supremacist group.
She snapped a photo of the slip of paper, distributed by the group Identity Evropa, before promptly taking it down. The flier shows several tattooed white men with the text “Our Generation, Our Future, Our Last Chance” overlaid over the image, and Silver says it was posted near the pedestrian crossing to reach Northside Social.
“I know what neo-Nazi, white supremacist propaganda is when I see it,” Silver told ARLnow. “As a Jewish woman, I can’t let that go.”
One likes to think their community is a safe & inclusive home for all. Then they find Neo-Nazi recruitment signs posted.@ArlingtonVaPD@ARLnowDOTcom , found this on the corner of Washington Blvd. and Wilson this afternoon (I’ve already trashed it) and I’m sure there are more. pic.twitter.com/UD055reotz
Silver, who works for a D.C. nonprofit focused on battling systemic racism in the region, suspects that the flier must have been new, as it had plainly not been soaked by the rain plaguing Arlington for the last week. She says she hasn’t spotted other, similar fliers around Arlington, but she plans to take down any others she might encounter.
“It’s not surprising, but it is very upsetting and disappointing,” Silver said. “It’s really quite sad. You see it happening all over the country and all over the world, this resurgence of white supremacists. They feel like they’ve been emboldened in this political climate.”
Sam Harrington, a spokesman for Identity Evropa, wrote in an email that the group is “a movement for European Americans seeking to preserve our identity and restore the American nation.”
“People of European heritage are being replaced as a result of mass immigration and globalization, and we shouldn’t be expected to find this desirable,” Harrington wrote.
The group argues on its website that it does not believe in white supremacy, but both the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League categorize the organization as a white supremacist group. The SPLC also notes that one of its founders helped plan the infamous “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville last summer, marked by the death of a protester, allegedly at the hands of a man with white supremacist beliefs.
Harrington would not say whether the group has any members in Arlington.
“We’re a nationwide organization, and our members participate in peaceful activism and fliering everywhere,” Harrington wrote.
Arlington County police spokeswoman Ashley Savage says her department has not received any reports about the fliers, dating back to Friday (May 18).
The first workshop at the church at 4444 Arlington Blvd in Barcroft is tomorrow (Saturday) from 1-5 p.m. Multicultural consultant Paula Cole Jones hosts a free session entitled, “How do we engage in racial justice as UUs?”
Then on Sunday, the church hosts a training in partnership with Rosslyn-based nonprofit Service Never Sleeps on the organization’s signature program, Allyship.
“Allyship is about moving people to a new paradigm of thinking about privilege and marginalized communities,” the event registration page reads. “Allyship promotes the idea that we can be bridge-builders who work together, and support each other toward the common purpose of ensuring equality, equity, and inclusion for everyone.”
The workshop lasts from 1-6 p.m. at the church, and says it will “teach you about the causes of social injustice, how to be an effective ally for marginalized communities, and how to actively influence and educate others.” It is one of four Allyship trainings to be hosted at UUCA this fall, and registration online is required.
Other Allyship trainings at the church are set for October 11, October 18, November 2 and November 5.
Racially-charged vandalism to car in Barcroft neighborhood (photo courtesy Evie Bernard)
Racially-charged vandalism to car in Barcroft neighborhood (photo courtesy Evie Bernard)
Street in Barcroft where vandalism took place
Cones placed along street in Barcroft where vandalism took place
Map of northern portion of Barcroft neighborhood and the National Guard complex
Racially-charged vandalism to car in Barcroft neighborhood (photo courtesy Evie Bernard)
Zoned parking a block away from area of parking dispute
Someone keyed the words “black bitch” onto a black man’s car on a block in Arlington’s Barcroft neighborhood, where some residents are up in arms about outsiders parking on their street.
The man, who works as a contractor at the Army National Guard Readiness Center (111 S. George Mason Drive), parked his car near the corner of S. Pershing Drive and 1st Street S. this past Thursday morning. When he arrived back at the car that afternoon, he found the words carved onto his driver’s side door and called police.
Officers photographed the car and dusted it for fingerprints. They also took “elimination prints” from the man and Evie Bernard, who carpools with him.
Bernard says she suspects the vandalism was actually targeted at her. She said some residents on the block have confronted her and other commuters about parking, even though it’s a public street and — unlike other nearby streets — not zoned for resident-only parking.
The prior Sunday, Bernard said, she had just returned from a brief vacation when a resident came out of his house and “started yelling and saying never to park there again.” The man, who was pointing his finger and “being very aggressive,” was soon joined by his wife and one of their children, who were all yelling at Bernard for parking in front of their house, she said.
“How would you feel if I parked in front of your house in Waldorf, Maryland?” one of them asked, according to Bernard’s account. The residents had somehow obtained Bernard’s name and apparently looked her up on Facebook, also referencing where she went on vacation and saying “I know where you work.” After about 5 minutes, Bernard drove away and then decided to call police.
“I was so upset that I got in my car and drove away,” she said. “I could only take so much… I was really upset. It was pretty much a nightmare.
Police took a report, Bernard said, but because her life was not threatened it was determined that no crime had occurred. An Arlington County Police Department spokeswoman corroborated that a report of verbal harassment had been filed.
Though Bernard initially suspected the people who confronted her — who are white — might have been responsible for the vandalism, police said today (Tuesday) that the residents have been eliminated as suspects.
Bernard and another Army National Guard contractor who contacted ARLnow.com said the parking issue is not likely to be solved anytime soon. Parking at the George Mason Drive campus is limited and most spots are reserved for employees; contractors are instructed to take transit or park on nearby streets.
While there were plenty of spots available on the 4400 block of 1st Street S. when an ARLnow reporter visited Monday afternoon, a resident said that there are times when the block is filled with cars, including many commuters. He said that residents have tried to apply for zoned parking, but a county parking study did not find enough commuter parking to meet the program threshold.
Earlier this month new zone parking applications were halted indefinitely, pending a review.
