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Police say there isn’t much they can do about KKK recruiting fliers in Orange

July 18, 2014

ORANGE (CNS) – Some residents in Orange were unsettled by the circulation of recruiting fliers for the Ku Klux Klan this week, but police told them there isn’t much authorities can do about it.

Police were called to the 2400 block of West Almond Avenue Thursday when a resident said she found a flier from “The Loyal White Knights of the Ku Klux Klan,” which listed mailing and web addresses as well as a phone number, said Orange police Sgt. Stephen Elfelt.

Officers told the resident no crime had been committed, he added.

About 15 homes received leaflets last weekend, according to the Orange County Register, which first reported on the fliers.

Patricia Dufrane, who lives on Almond, said she found the fliers “threatening,” the Register reported. “It got everyone upset,” Dufrane told the newspaper.

Melissa Carr of the Anti-Defamation League in Orange County said, “The KKK is an unusual sighting in Orange County in this day and age. They’re not one of the primary groups we see so that is of great interest.”

The conflict in Gaza between Hamas and Israel and the issue of Central American children emigrating to the United States could be “stirring the pot for extremists,” Carr said.

“One of the things ADL is tracking and is very concerned about is the rhetoric that is surrounding the issue” of immigration, Carr said. “It’s dehumanizing rhetoric — things like, `Protect your kids from disease.’ ”

The league has found that many of the “rallies and protests” on immigration issues, such as the recent one in Murrieta, are being organized by outsiders, Carr said.

“They’re taking the issue of immigration reform and co-opting it to their other hateful messages and they’re attracting other extremists,” Carr said.