JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — Neighbors in St. Nicholas said they woke up to Ziploc bags full of rocks and hateful messages directed towards the LGBT community Sunday, the anniversary of the Pulse Nightclub shooting.
"This is unacceptable, and so I was kind of flustered, but I kept walking because I thought it was me that they were targeting, so I was like, 'well, I'm going to check everyone's driveway and I just kept walking and finding them in everyone's driveway," a neighbor, who asked not to be identified for fear of retaliation, said.
That woman said she found the bags when she went to pick up the newspaper. She then collected the bags before her neighbors woke up and saw them.
“Some of my neighbors have young children and teenagers, and there are members of the community in this neighborhood ... I’m not going to be scared. You’re not going to intimidate me. This is ridiculous," she said.
The phrase "nothing to be proud of" is printed all over the flyers, along with inaccurate data about the LGBT community.
"They’re equating pedophilia, domestic abuse, child abuse, divorce rates, STIs with the LGBTQIA community and that’s just not acceptable to normalize that. Something like this is going around on the day of Pulse. It's a very emotionally charged day," she said.
Other neighbors said they find the act disgusting. The woman who wants to remain anonymous said she reported it to the Southern Poverty Law Center and to the Jacksonville Sheriff's Office. JSO said it didn't receive any other reports of the incident.
"We're not impressed. We're not scared. We won't tolerate that. We don't want that in Jacksonville," she said.
A Jacksonville Sheriff's officer came to the woman's house Monday afternoon and looked at the bag. The woman said he offered extra patrols for the neighborhood for Monday night if anyone was worried about retaliation.
First Coast News reached out to the Southern Poverty Law Center regarding the woman's report and is waiting to hear back. You can report hate incidents on the Center's website.
