California town latest to be hit with swastikas in ziploc bags

By Dan Verbin(A7) Bags of white rice with swastikas in them were discovered by shocked residents in Carmichael, California this week.

The country sheriff’s office said that the ziploc bags were placed on local doorsteps.

“It had a small amount of like cooking white rice and a flyer inside from the Aryan Nation, that had a swastika on it,” Sgt. Rod Grassmann told FOX40.

Grassmann said that police have opened an investigation but not as a bias incident.

The bags were left at 10 houses that police know of. But they suspect there may be more.

“There are many codes that look at hate crimes and intimidation,” Grassmann said. “We’re looking more as a point of intimidation to this particular community, which can be charged as a crime.”

A similar incident also occurred this week in Huntington, Arkansas. Anti-Semitic white supremacist flyers in ziploc bags were found in residents’ yards. Those flyers include vulgarity and white power messages, according to the sheriff’s office.

Both incidents follow a recent pattern, with other occurrences this year of white supremacist flyers in ziploc bags being dropped at homes.

In March, KKK flyers in ziploc bags were found outside dozens of homes in Newport Beach, California.

In that case, a rock was also included with each bag.

Police in Carmichael are actively searching the locations where the flyers were dropped for fingerprints.

Homeland Security has also been brought in.

In one instance, surveillance video footage did capture a suspect planting a bag of rice at a house. However, it is not clear if the residents were targeted or if the bag was randomly dropped.

“Certainly, our concern is that something like this gets escalated into something more,” Grassmann said.