SOUTHAMPTON — A parent reported to police Monday that she found an antisemitic sticker in her child’s candy bag after trick-or-treating in town on Halloween.
Southampton Police Chief Ian Illingsworth said the parent came to the Police Department in person Monday to report the incident. Police have not determined who distributed the sticker or how it ended up in the child’s candy bag.
The department contacted the Northwestern District Attorney’s Office, which determined that the sticker was protected by the First Amendment and did not constitute a crime, according to Illingsworth.
Illingsworth said as of Tuesday morning that was the only report received by police regarding the incident. An official police report is expected to be completed in the coming days, he said.
The parent, who requested anonymity out of concern about retaliation, said she was disturbed by the discovery. She posted about the incident on a local Facebook group on Sunday, including a picture of the sticker she found in her child’s candy bag.
“I don’t understand why anybody would do that,” she said in a phone interview with the Gazette. “It’s really disgusting.”
The sticker depicts a person wearing a kippah, also called a yarmulke, with exaggerated, stereotypical antisemitic features. A link printed on the sticker directs visitors to a website called “Goyim TV Flyers,” which is operated by the Goyim Defense League, according to the Anti-Defamation League (ADL).
The ADL describes the Goyim Defense League as “a loose network of individuals who promote vitriolic antisemitism and white supremacist themes through online activity, propaganda distributions, and real-world actions.”
The website contains antisemitic and white supremacist flyers, videos and other propaganda. Authorities have not established whether anyone affiliated with the organization was responsible for distributing the sticker.
The parent said she and her child were trick-or-treating in the area of White Loaf Road and Bissonnette Circle, a popular spot for Halloween in town.
The parent added that she also reported the incident to the ADL.
The parent said she made the Facebook post to help spread the word to other parents who went trick-or-treating in the area and may have found the same sticker. The Facebook post attracted dozens of comments within 24 hours, with reactions ranging from condemnation of the antisemitic imagery to jokes about the incident, the parent said.
She said she was particularly troubled by some of the responses and by the attention the post received from people outside the community.
The post has since been taken down, though the parent said she did not remove it. It remains unclear why it was removed.
What began as an effort to warn other parents had spread far beyond her original intentions, she said.
