Police in Saugus, Massachusetts, are condemning a message of hate speech hung on a banner over Route 1 this weekend.
Drivers heading southbound on Route 1 in Saugus saw a hateful banner that read "Jews Did 9/11" on Sunday as the world commemorated the anniversary of the terror attacks on Sept. 11.
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The police department responded after receiving "multiple complaints about a hateful and false message on a banner" over the weekend. Police said
Saugus police say officers got the complaints about the banner around 6 p.m. Saturday, which several men with masks were seen holding across Route 1.
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Police determined that the men were not breaking any laws, "despite the hateful subject of their message," according to a news release. Saugus police notified the Anti-Defamation League of New England about what happened, which released a statement.
"On September 11, a day when we remember a great tragedy experienced by our country and the loss of too many, a number of highway overpasses in our Commonwealth were tarnished with anti-Semitic banners, held by cowardly masked extremists, blaming these terrorist attacks on Jews," ADL New England Regional Director Robert Trestan said in the statement. "The scapegoating of the Jewish community is an age-old but exceedingly harmful anti-Semitic trope that must be called out and condemned whenever and wherever it occurs. Using this tragedy to spread false, destructive and divisive narratives harms our communities and sense of security and disgraces the memory of the victims from that day. Join us in condemning these activities and in recommitting ourselves to upholding our community values of justice."
"When nobody is interested in your message of hate, the most desperate thing you can do is scrawl it on a sheet and hang it over a highway and basically force people to see your message when they're driving 55 miles an hour," said Robert Trestan of the Anti-Defamation League of New England.
He says a well-known extremist group has claimed responsibility, and that it is the same group that protested outside a drag queen story hour in Jamaica Plain earlier this year and held up a banner that said "Keep Boston Irish" at the St. Patrick's Day Parade.
"Even though these groups like to hide their identities using face masks, they're really proud of what they're doing," said Trestan.
Trestan says there's been a dramatic increase in hateful incidents over the last year, including just days ago in Marblehead, where a town recreation building in the Wyman Woods was defaced with anti-government, anti-Black and anti-Jewish images and graffiti.
"Unfortunately, this is a reflection of people that are in our society that we have to deal with that have views of hate, antisemitism, racism," said Marblehead Police Chief Dennis King.
Town officials say the graffiti was quickly removed, and they don't believe there's any connection to a specific group.
"It's just something that any community does not want to happen, and we take it seriously and we address it," said Marblehead Town Administrator Thatcher Kezer.
The vandalism in Marblehead was found just steps from Sue Riordan's home.
"Outraged," she said. "I cannot believe this could go on in this town and right next-door to me. It really makes me sad."
Police say they have some leads in the case, but so far, no arrests have been made.
Authorities investigating the Saugus incident say they received a number of complaints on Sunday, but there was nothing they could do, as this was free speech and no laws were being broken.
