San Marcos police investigating threatening flyers from 'Trump Klan'
Threatening, pro-Donald Trump flyers that invoke the Ku Klux Klan appeared on Kamala Harris campaign yard signs over the weekend in San Marcos, according to the city's Police Department.
"Greetings! YOU have been identified and are now in our National Database of miscreant Harris supporters," the flyers say. They are signed by "The Grand Dragon of Trump Klan #124," who also indicated they are based in San Marcos.
It's unclear whether the individual or group behind the flyers is affiliated with the KKK. "Grand dragon" is a leadership title that has been used by the white supremacist terrorist organization.
The San Marcos Police Department received at least five reports of such flyers and is actively investigating their origin, said department spokeswoman Nadine Cesak. Any suspects will be referred to the Hays County district attorney for prosecution, she said.
The main threat contained in the flyers: an extensive federal tax audit "once the magnificent Donald Trump assumes the presidency again." More ominously, the flyers say such a bureaucratic probe will come in lieu of "the hangman's noose of the old days."
Cesak urged members of the public to report flyers to the Police Department's nonemergency line. They also should leave flyers intact, she said, noting that a law enforcement official would remove them.
She confirmed that this is the first voter intimidation incident the department has investigated this election cycle. The Hays County sheriff's office has not received reports of any such incidents, according to Deputy Mark Andrews, a spokesperson for the office.
But such incidents have become relatively common in Texas in recent years, according to data from the Southern Poverty Law Center, the civil rights nonprofit that tracks hate groups and crimes. Since 2018, the group has recorded more than 2,000 flyer-related incidents in Texas that target racial and ethnic minorities, political groups and LGBTQ+ people.
Last year, the law center exposed the leader of a Driftwood-based group that it said was behind nearly 80% of such flyers in 2022. So far, local law enforcement has no reason to believe the group is behind the San Marcos spate.
A senior research analyst at the Southern Poverty Law Center, who requested anonymity out of personal safety concerns, described the flyers as "alarming" and said they are designed "to intimidate and let people know" that hate groups are nearby.
However, he said it's probably not an indicator of a major Klan presence in the area. Even as Texas has become a magnet for other hate groups, he said, it has seen a decrease in KKK activity since the group's nationwide resurgence in the 1920s.
“Be vigilant, be aware, but try not to panic," he said. "There are not that many of these guys as there are of us."
The FBI has told state and local law enforcement agencies to be on high alert for domestic extremists who could interfere with the election or inauguration and act violently toward candidates, elected officials, poll workers, journalists and judges overseeing election cases, an NBC News review of classified documents found.
The San Marcos flyers appeared days after a man assaulted a poll worker in southwest San Antonio after she asked him to remove a pro-Trump hat. Jesse Lutzenberger, 63, faces one charge of injury to an elderly person in connection with the assault.