The Town of Fort Mill issued a statement late Friday after a local newsman alerted them to a sticker from a white nationalist hate group being found on a Main Street utility box.
The sticker from Patriot Front, similar to one pictured above, was promptly removed by crews from the S.C. Department of Transportation, Town Public Relations Manager Chris Sardelli said.
Michael Harrison, who runs a news website called The MillTown News, alerted town officials to the sticker and posted a photo on his website., according to Sardelli.
“The town doesn’t support hate groups or any messages that support hate, and that is why there was a rush to get rid of it,” Sardelli told The Fort Mill Sun on Friday night.
Here is the press release from the Town of Fort Mill:
Sept. 20, 2019— A sticker associated with a known hate group was found today on a Main Street utility box and was promptly removed by crews from the S.C. Department of Transportation.
Fort Mill Town Manager Davy Broom was made aware of the sticker on Friday, Sept. 20, which had been placed on a S.C. DOT transportation control panel at the top of Main Street, near the intersection with Tom Hall and Clebourne streets. It is not known how long the sticker had been on the box.
“The sticker has since been removed. I’ve verified this myself a short while ago,” Broom said at 7:30 p.m. Friday. Broom condemned the sticker and its message.
“The Town does not, in any way, support groups that push hate messages,” he said. “The Town does not support the message of this group so we will abstain from providing their group name.” (end of press release)
According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, Patriot Front is a white nationalist hate group that broke off from Vanguard America in the aftermath of the deadly “Unite the Right” rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, of August 12, 2017.
Wikipedia defines the group as “an American white supremacist, neo-Nazi, neo-fascist group which utilizes imagery of patriotism, liberty and other widely accepted American values to promote its ideology.”