Details of the hate crime are finally released....
(News Journal) robin brown reports ~ Grimaldi may be a bias target in bizarre mailbox incident
HATE CRIME PROBE
Grimaldi a bias target?
County police cite message, Nazi references
New Castle County police have shifted their investigation of three bizarre messages directed to the county executive about his top aide – including two flying discs scrawled with Nazi references and swastikas – from being a harassment investigation to that of “a potential hate crime.” A note and, a week later, the two discs were delivered to the same residence in the Autumnwood development near Hockessin. Police say the family has no affiliation with either official.
Police have been reaching out to and consulting with the state’s Jewish community leaders, such as Dory Zatuchni, chief executive officer of Jewish Family Services of Delaware. “It’s a horrible expression of hatred,” she said Thursday night.......This is not even ignorance,” she said. “It’s blind hatred.... This cannot be tolerated.” The anti-Semitic rhetoric apparently is aimed at Chief Administrative Officer David Grimaldi, who is Jewish, county spokesman Antonio Prado said. His maternal grandfather was a Holocaust survivor, according to biographies. The unsigned note was put in the family’s mailbox on Oct. 29 and the more-hostile discs were left there Tuesday.
........The case is being watched by the Anti-Defamation League’s office in Philadelphia, which contacted the county, Prado said. The note arrived folded, written in all capital letters, and did not follow the lines of the notebook paper, with a ragged edge, torn from a spiral binding. An excerpt said:
TOMMY PLEASE GET RID OF YOUR GOON GRIMALDI HE IS TARNISHING OUR GOVT. AND HE IS A BAD APPLE!
SEND HIM BACK TO NEW YORK!
AND WE WILL LEAVE YOUR NEIGHBORHOOD ALONE!
Nazi references came on the discs left a week later. Scrawled in black marker on the the top of each disc is a swastika and “ANTI GORDON GANG.” One says, “ACHTUNG!” The backs of both said, “YOU ARE WHO YOU ASSOCIATE WITH!” One said“LET’S GET BIZZY GET RID OF IZZY GRIMALDI,” and the other: “GRIMALDI = GOON” and “GORDON =?” On the edge of that disc was “BEWARE OF THE WERHMACHT,” a misspelled reference to the German army in 1935-45, and “WE AVENGE GERMANY!” Zatuchni said, “there is no excuse” for such hate speech. “It’s frightening.... It’s wrong. It’s hurtful and destructive.” The one good part about the incident, she said, is that “the police have been wonderfully responsive.”
They left out one thing...the letter was signed Friends of Rockwood. Guess that was too controversial.....
The back of one of the discs attacks County Executive Tom Gordon and Chief Administrative Officer David Grimaldi.
COURTESY OF NEW CASTLE COUNTY POLICE
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