UPDATE -- June 22, 2007: The FBI is now investigating threats like the one detailed below. See story from the Miami Herald.
PEORIA -- In an appalling incident that shows the worst side of human nature and the Internet, a Bradley University math professor has received threats from a group that uses the Nazi swastika in its literature.
Ollie Nanyes who lives near the Bradley U. campus has reported the threats to Peoria police.
He said he first received a threatening telephone call, then a car cruised through his West Bluff neighborhood on June 16 throwing out threatening fliers and seeking converts to a hate group.
The leader of the group is reputed to be Bill White of the American National Socialist Workers Party who lives in the state of Virginia. (Beware if you click on this extremely offensive link.)
"He left a threatening call," on the answering machine, Nanyes said, then his followers distributed the flier, which included a photo of Nanyes taken from a snapshot on his blog. "It has a large swastika on it and claims that I approve of the murder and rape of white people," Nanyes stated. It also called him a "Red" or communist.
Nanyes had posted comments on his blog (scroll down) and the Daily Kos condemning White for his attack on national columnist Leonard Pitts.
The Southern Poverty Law Center has White on its watch list. (Scroll down.)
Pitts wrote about a criminal incident in Knoxville, Tenn. which has become a cause for right wing extremist groups.
Nanyes said police took copies of the flier.
He's not losing sleep over the incidents, he said, but does find them troubling. "This is just a bunch of morons. They will not appeal to anyone in this neighborhood," he said, adding that apparently "they have nothing better to do with their time."
--Elaine Hopkins
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