About a dozen Douglas County residents say they found a disturbing item at their homes: fliers apparently written by a Ku Klux Klan organization criticizing the recent federal directive urging schools to allow transgender students to use restrooms that fit their gender identity.
The flier refers to transgender students as “freaks” and has an image of someone wearing a hood with the words “The KKK wants you.”
Homeowner Tenisha Bell filed a report with the Douglas County Sheriff’s Office after receiving one of the fliers.
“This hatred and racism should not be tolerated anywhere,” said Bell, who owns a public relations firm.
Neither residents nor police were able to speculate as to why this neighborhood was targeted by the flyer distributors.
A spokesman for the Douglas County sheriff’s office told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution that they are not addressing incident as a hate crime.
“There’s no crime being committed,” Lt. Glenn Daniel said. “It’s one person’s opinion. It’s one group’s opinion.”
Daniel said the incident was reported to police on Tuesday.
Georgia is one of several states in the county that do not have hate crime laws. The Georgia General Assembly passed a hate crime bill in 2000 that was thrown out as "unconstitutionally vague" by the Georgia Supreme Court in 2004, according to PolitiFact Georgia.
The U.S. Education and Justice departments last month announced guidelines saying that public schools should allow transgender students to use restrooms, locker rooms and other facilities that fit their gender identity. Georgia and several other states filed a lawsuit late last month against the federal government, saying the directive is "unconstitutional overreach."
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