[B]URLINGTON — A North Carolina man was arrested Thursday afternoon in Morrisville and charged with aggravated disorderly conduct enhanced by a hate crime penalty for allegedly delivering racist fliers to two women of color in Burlington, according to law enforcement.
William Schenk, 21, of Wilmington, North Carolina, admitted that he delivered the Ku Klux Klan recruitment fliers when he was confronted by a detective earlier this week, but claimed he did so in his role as a “Kleagle” or recruiter for the Klan. Law enforcement contends that Schenk targeted two women of color, the only people known to have received the fliers.
Schenk, who was living and working in Burlington, told police that he delivered a few fliers in the area of St. Paul Street last month to see if he felt comfortable doing so. He claimed to have delivered 40 or 50 fliers in that area.
Police have asked through social media for other members of the community to come forward if they received fliers, but no one has. Schenk later told police that he started delivering the fliers but later backed out, according to court documents.
Chittenden County State’s Attorney T.J. Donovan said that while Vermont has a long tradition of protecting even objectionable free speech, Schenk committed a crime by targeting the two women of color with fliers. The KKK recruitment fliers constitute an “implicit” threat because of the violent and racist history of the KKK.
Schenk is facing two aggravated disorderly conduct charges, both misdemeanors, enhanced by a hate crime penalty. Disorderly conduct, a misdemeanor, typically carries a maximum sentence of 60 days, but because the incident was said to be racially motivated, prosecutors will seek an enhanced crime of up to two additional years for each count.
After officers told Schenk that he would be summoned to court to face a disorderly conduct charge, he originally agreed to turn himself in. When he didn’t and officers weren’t immediately able locate him, a judge issued a warrant for his arrest. Investigators traced Schenk to the house of an acquaintance in Morrisville using “cellphone work” and other investigative tools, Burlington Police Chief Brandon del Pozo said.
Del Pozo thanked Burlington Police Detective Thomas Nash, who led the investigation, as well as the FBI and U.S. Marshal’s Service for their help in identifying and arresting Schenk.
The chief also extended his gratitude to the public, whose help he said was crucial to the successful investigation. Two tips from the public were important to identifying Schenk, but del Pozo, who was criticized for how his department handled initial reports of the incident, also thanked the broader community for making the episode a priority.
“The City of Burlington wasn’t content to let this just be a symbol of our times or simply to chalk this up to free speech,” he said, “They were our partners in making sure this was taken seriously, and they were our partners in making sure this was investigated.”
When first contacted, a police dispatcher initially dismissive told one woman’s father that no crime had occurred. Del Pozo later said he wasn’t satisfied with that response and has since said dispatchers will go through racial bias training.
Activists organized two rallies on the Church Street steps of City Hall to demand action and show solidarity with the women who received the KKK fliers. Those demonstrations boiled over into frustration with the racial bias people of color experience in predominantly white Vermont, and how unprepared police and other institutions are to deal with it.
The first tip from the public came from workers at a local FedEx store who reported finding one of the fliers in their copy machine. Police were later able to extract one of Schenk’s fingerprints from that flier, del Pozo said.
A Plattsburgh, New York, woman also contacted Burlington police after they released surveillance footage from the copy shop. She said the grainy images looked like Schenk, a former boyfriend whom she had a restraining order against and whom she said was a member of the KKK.
Court documents say that in 2014 Schenk was arrested in New York for an unspecified charge and was found with KKK business cards.
FBI agents returning from training saw the report and notified Burlington police that their suspect matched the description of Schenk they had on file.
Schenk told police he is the only member of the KKK active in Vermont and New Hampshire, but claimed the white supremacist group has members in Maine. He told them he was here to recruit for Klan, and he received hard copies of the fliers, which read “Join the Klan save our land,” from the Klan’s “Imperial Office.” Schenk said he had successfully recruited for the Klan in North Carolina.
He is expected to be arraigned in Chittenden County Superior Court on Friday. Donovan acknowledged that it could be a difficult case, but that it’s also one his office is prepared to litigate — and one that he anticipates could make its way to the Vermont Supreme Court.
“What’s clear in the jurisprudence on freedom of speech is that threats are not protected speech,” Donovan said. The fact that only residents of color received the fliers makes it targeted, threatening behavior intended to intimidate, he said.
Mary Brown-Guillory, president of the Champlain area NAACP, who attended a Thursday news conference announcing the arrest, thanked police, prosecutors and the community for their response. She said her organization has resources to help people impacted by the incident.
“We know that children have had issues sleeping and worrying about what’s going on in their community,” Brown-Guillory said. “We are also very proud of the city at this time because we are at a new awakening in our country and this is a time we should all be fighting to be more inclusive.”
Speaking after the news conference, Jocelyn Harvey, one of the women who received a flier, said she was impressed with the police response and the speed of their investigation. Harvey, 24, said she felt supported by the community.
“I’m back to feeling 99 percent safe,” she said.
