De Pere police have identified the man responsible for the racist flyers that were placed on vehicles in a St. Norbert parking lot last week.
Investigators recently stated that they believe the two incidences are not related.
James Skorczewski, director of Campus Safety at St. Norbert, said that the flyers on his campus contained a link to a Facebook account, where students could go if they were interested.
“In our incident, the message was about ‘white pride’ and specifically identified a Facebook site for more information,” Skorczewski said. “That’s how the police found the subject. The subject was not affiliated with St. Norbert College and said he simply selected the college as he was driving past.”
They believe that he worked alone and had nothing to do with the similar UW-Oshkosh incident that happened on the same day.
UW-Oshkosh Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs Petra Roter said that the flyers on each campus contained different images and messages, which is why they are probably not related incidences.
“The perpetrator in this incident has confessed to the distribution of similar flyers at St. Norbert’s,” Roter said.
“He takes full responsibility there, but states he was not involved in the incident in Oshkosh and does not know who is responsible. The posters had similar messages, but there were significant difference in the content and approaches. The flyers distributed on our campus contained offensive cartoons that were racist and sexist in nature and depicted violent acts of assault and rape.”
The De Pere police have also stated that they will not press charges against the man involved.
St. Norbert President Tom Kunkel said De Pere police have talked to the man involved, and cited him for trespassing.
“The De Pere police instructed the Green Bay man, who admitted to circulating the flyers at SNC, not to trespass on campus again, and I assume he won’t.” Kunkel said.
Chief of Police Michael Melland said that the act of distributing flyers is not illegal, and is protected under the first Amendment as free speech.
“The De Pere police didn’t press charges because the flyers weren’t illegal,” Melland said. “There [was] a recent Appeals Court decision [the legal citation wasn’t provided] saying that citations issued for littering in a similar incident were an unconstitutional attempt to block free speech.”
Kunkel also said the city of De Pere is unlike many other cities because it does not have any regulations regarding flyer distribution.
“As I understand it, the city of De Pere does not have an ordinance forbidding distribution of fliers on cars, as number of other municipalities do [which may be why they are not taking legal action],” Kunkel said.
Chancellor Richard Wells released a statement concerning hate speech last week.
In his statement, he said, “We are doing everything we can to assist law enforcement authorities to apprehend the perpetrator(s), and we will continue to do whatever we can within the law to protect members of our community from further exposure to acts of a sexist or racist nature.”
Anyone with information about this subject is encouraged to call University Police at 920-424-1216.
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