Police and mayor release joint statement repudiating posting of white supremacist signs and asking for help in identifying perpetrators

Posted By: Staff July 18, 2023

Police are seeking information about seeing or witnessing persons posting cardboard signs promoting white-nationalist propaganda including contact information along the block of 597 Farmington Avenue.

The signs were removed after Bristol police responded to a call on Monday from a concerned citizen who reported seeing the signs, according to a joint release from the Bristol Police Dept. and the mayor’s office.

“We are choosing not to name the site to avoid giving the group any notoriety,” the release states.

The official Police Dept. statement quoted in the release is as follows: “The Bristol Police Department stands with all members of our community and condemns groups of hate in the strongest possible way.”

Mayor Jeffrey Caggiano, in the same release, states the following:

“Although I can’t comment on the ongoing investigation, I want to echo my displeasure on any outside group trying to divide our Bristol Community. Hate speech has no place in Bristol and I ask everyone in our community to join me in calling out hate speech in any form. Bristol stands together united as one community.”

Anyone with information is asked to contact Officer Savage at (860) 584-3000 or email an anonymous tip to BPDCrimeWatch@bristolct.gov.

Last year, around the beginning of June, leaflets promoting white supremacism were dropped in the Northeast section of Bristol. A tepid response from the mayor to the presence of the leaflets drew the ire a group of vocal anti-racist advocates, who attended several council meetings to voice their discontent.

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