Racist flyer found in mailboxes

Arthur McDarment said a dose of hate was the last thing he expected to get when he went to get his mail and his copy of The Recorder this week.

To his surprise, the 90-year-old Doree Street resident said this was exactly what he received.

Wrapped in his newspaper and stuffed in his mailbox was literature from a group called “Creator Skinheads.”

“I didn’t know what to think,” McDarment said. “I put it out of my mind because I know it wasn’t meant for sensible people.”

But not before showing his wife, Luisa.

“He said, ‘honey this looks like the devil’s work,’” Luisa McDarment said. “At first I thought it had to do with the cross on Murry Park, but then I read it and I knew it wasn’t.”

The flyer, which did not have postage, states a point-by-point list of aims of the white supremacist group, which The Recorder will not publish.

The group does, by association, link minorities to drugs, gangs, prostitution and other criminal activities.

It also twice mentions the word “Rahowa,” which according to several online reference guides is an abbreviation of the phrase “Racial Holy War,” the belief that white people should wage a holy war against nonwhites.

A Porterville post office box number was included on the mailing.

The McDarments were not alone. Three houses down, Lino Padilla, 67, said he received the same literature in his mailbox Monday.

Padilla said his granddaughter turned it in to The RecorderÂ’s circulation department.

“I don’t see why I would be getting literature,” Padilla said. “I think they need to start looking at home because some of the things they say are happening, happen right in their homes, too.”

So far, the McDarments and Padilla are the only residents who have come forward to complain about the white supremacist propaganda.

Neighbors who didnÂ’t receive the mailing, however, said the practice is intolerable.

“It ticks me off,” said Teresa Higareda, who has lived on Portervile’s east side for 46 years. “It’s frightening that people would engage in that so close to home.”

White supremacists gangs are not new to the Porterville area, local police said.

Local anti-gang Web site lists four white supremacist gangs operating in the Porterville area. The Recorder has chosen not to publish the names of the gangs.

“Do we have gangs or working a gang that is white supremacist? Yes,” Police Chief Chuck McMillan said. “We continue to catalog and investigate all gang activity.”

At the very least however, the perpetrators may have committed a federal offense.

Distribution of mail inside of a mailbox by anyone other than U.S. postal personnel is a federal crime, U.S. Postal Service spokesman Larry Dozier said.

Serious allegations such as these would be investigated by the U.S. Postal Service Office of the Inspector General, Dozier said.

“That is definitely a violation of postal regulations,” Dozier said after receiving a facsimile copy of the flyer. “No one is supposed to put anything in a mailbox, not even Girl Scouts.

“This will definitely be investigated by our office.”

Tulare County SheriffÂ’s Department Sgt. Jody Cox, whose department has jurisdiction in unincorporated East Porterville, said residents should immediately report such actions to the SheriffÂ’s Department.

“We would facilitate the information getting to the Post Office investigators,” Cox said.

An investigation by The RecorderÂ’s circulation department has ruled out involvement by any newspaper employees in the illegal distribution, Publisher Mark Fazzone said.

Fazzone apologized to any other subscribers who may have been affected by the illegal mailings.

“This is extremely disturbing,” Fazzone said. “We want to apologize to anyone who was exposed to this type of propaganda, it has no place in our community and it will not be tolerated by The Recorder or its parent company, Freedom Communications.”

“The Recorder staff is representative of our community, but fortunately for us, we do not represent anyone involved in the Aryan Brotherhood that may or may not exist in Porterville. We will not tolerate this on our staff, or in our community.”