Image c/o City of Walnut Creek By Edith Cuevas News Reporter A Walnut Creek City council meeting was hijacked on Tuesday by a white supremacist wearing a “white power” t-shirt. His man identified himself as “Scottie” and delivered a two-minute speech full of hateful and antisemitic rhetoric, going as far as ending his speech with a Nazi salute.
The man expressed that his speech was necessary to speak up about the new restrictions on public comments during zoom meetings of the city council. Scotty expressed that his “first amendment right was being restricted by Jews” directly referring to the only Jewish member of the city council, Kevin Wilk. Directly pointing at Councilmember Wilk, Scotty said “I’m here today because of people like you think we’re scared to show up and show our face and call you out in person, and I dare you to shut me down.” The man immediately left the room after his speech, leaving the Council and attendees shocked in silence. Councilmember Wilk was the first to break the silence, “Mayor [Loella Haskew], I would just like to say something now that public comment has ended, that we live in a free country and there is free speech, and that means that we have to listen to awful and heinous comments like we just listened to,” said Wilk. “And I would like to apologize on behalf of the City Council and anybody that had to hear that horrible, horrible speech.” Mayor Pro Tem Cindy Darling stepped in and added “And we want to apologize to you, Kevin, because we know this is clearly so directed at you and so vile and not who we are as a city.” Councilmember Wilk also expressed, “I’m not going to cower from this. I’m going to stand up for people in the community. For every one of my voice, there’s a thousand people out there that wish… that are feeling that they don’t have a voice.” Walnut Creek police have informed the public that the FBI is aware of this individual and will coordinate with the council to keep all future meetings safe.
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October 2024
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