Antisemitic flyers show up in Colorado Springs neighborhoods, local Jewish leaders concerned

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (KRDO) -- Art Cooper woke up Wednesday morning to his wife placing two plastic bags on their kitchen counter in the Sunset Ridge neighborhood of Colorado Springs. Inside each, was a handful of rice and a flyer that reads, 'Every aspect of Disney child grooming is Jewish. Protect your children.'

"She tossed two of these on our counter and said, 'Can you believe this stuff is being spread in the neighborhood?' And I looked at it and I said, 'OK, no way,'" said Cooper. "No way does this kind of stuff happen in Colorado Springs."

Cooper said he immediately called the Colorado Springs Police Department.

KRDO reached out to the department to see if they received other reports. CSPD Public Information Officer Robert Tornabene said they received multiple calls from residents living in southwest Colorado Springs reporting antisemitic flyers

Still, Tornabene says there's not much police can do.

"Unfortunately, regardless of your abhorrence towards the language that's in there," Tornabene explained, "there's nothing in this flyer that is threatening towards an individual or towards a particular business or entity. It's just language that's offensive. Unfortunately, that's considered free speech and there's nothing criminal that can be investigated."

Cooper asked his neighbors if they received the same flyers. While many did not, they found that a family down the street received two plastic bags filled with rice and flyers as well.

"My neighbor started walking around and he found more," said Cooper. "So right within a three-house area here, we found four of these different things. And so, you know darn well there's probably tons more."

Cooper says the Neighborhood Watch plans to send out an email about the incident.

"I mean, somebody went to great lengths to distribute these," said Cooper. "They're in a bag with rice so that they can throw them, or that the rice will make them stay down. These are printed off a color printer. So somebody had to print them, cut them, put them in these bags, add rice. You know, that's a lot of effort for something that's very racist."

Jeff Ader, Acting President of Temple Beit Torah in Colorado Springs, said the incident is unsettling, calling into question the safety of the Jewish Community in the city and the safety of the congregation.

"It's still shocking," said Ader. "I know it's happened over many thousands of years of history, but it still belies all my imagination. I don't understand it and I never will."