Mayoral candidates denounce KKK flyer drop at Carmel, Fishers homes ahead of election.

Police are investigating the drop of hate-spewing flyers at Carmel and Fishers homes seeking recruits for the Ku Klux Klan.

“This is really disturbing that people in this quiet, diverse neighborhood have to come home to these types of ugly images,” said Jennifer Barker, 52, who lives in the City Center area of Carmel.

Barker said about 80 flyers were left at the end of driveways of homes in her subdivision, some rolled up and attached to the bottom of mailbox poles and some left on the curb.

The flyers were discovered Saturday morning and neighbors quickly gathered them and reported the drop to police. Barker said the messages on flyers, purportedly from the Trinity White Knights, of Kentucky, varied.

One flyer reads “The KKK wants you,” and lists grievances about the LGBTQ+ community, “filth” in school libraries and gender identity policies.

“Enough is enough. Parents take your stand. Join the Klan,” the flyer states.

Candidates denounce

The flyers’ distribution comes just days before heated municipal elections but they are not expressly political and don’t encourage recipients to vote for a candidate or party.

Still, the Carmel Republican and Democratic mayoral candidates immediately denounced them, as did Fishers Mayor Scott Fadness, a Republican running unopposed.

“I'm disgusted to see what appears to be KKK flyers being found in Carmel and surrounding communities,” Republican Sue Finkam said in a post on X, formerly Twitter. “I reached out to Carmel PD and look forward to the results of their investigation.”

Democrat Miles Nelson said he also called police.

“The KKK or bigotry of any kind will not be tolerated in our community, period,” he said on X. “This behavior — and this group — has no place in our community. They need to go home — and never come back.”

Some of the flyers list a phone number and a post office box in Maysville, Kentucky.

A voice recording at the number identifies it as belonging to the Trinity White Knights, a “law-abiding Christian organization,” serving white men, women and children.

Fadness said he "does not condone these actions or messages and my commitment to keeping Fishers a safe and welcoming community continues."

He said the Fishers Police Department.

"We do not intend to give any further attention to these groups," Fadness declared.

Carmel Police Lt. D. J. Schoeff said the KKK flyer investigation is ongoing but police have not consulted with prosecutors about what — if any — law were broken.

He said the priority of police is to make sure the flyer drop was not a precursor to any targeted violence.

“We just want to make sure everyone stays safe,” he said.

Schoeff said the flyers appear to have been distributed in two neighborhoods and not city-wide. He said he did not know why the neighborhoods were targeted but Barker noted that two homes on her block fly gay pride flags out front.

Heated campaign

Finkam and Nelson are vying to replace Republican Mayor Jim Brainard, who has served since 1996, in a contentious campaign.

Most of the friction has been around Nelson's insistence that Finkam denounces a far-right group, Moms for Liberty, which a hate watchdog group, the Southern Poverty Law Center, has labeled as an extremist organization.

Both candidates had criticized the local Moms for Liberty for posting a Hitler quote in its newsletter last summer, for which the group apologized after a spurt of public outrage.

But at a mayoral debate Oct. 2, Nelson publicly challenged Finkam to denounce the group itself, not just the use of the quote. Finkam declined and said subsequently she had been hassled by strangers, who have called her a "Nazi" and "racist."

Dirty tricks?

It’s also the second time the Carmel candidates had to condemn the distribution of controversial material during the campaign. In October, text messages went out to voters claiming that Democrats were supporting a pro-Palestinian rally in downtown Indianapolis just after the outbreak of the Israeli-Hamas war.

The Hamilton County democrats denied they backed the rally and the GOP said it didn't send the texts.

Klan chapter resurfaces

The Southern Poverty Law Center said the Kentucky-based Trinity White Knights were inactive from 2015 until October, when they started distributing flyers in Kentucky, Tennessee and Ohio.

The center said the flyers are used to intimidate and inspire fear more than as a recruitment tool. SPLC said it did not know how many members the chapter.

Jacob Markey, executive director of the Indianapolis Jewish Community Relations Council, said he was “frankly not surprised,” the KKK campaign came to cities in Hamilton County.

“There has been a surge in hate all across the country,” he said. “Sometimes it takes just one or two people with a copier machine.”

The council, he said, has been warning members to have a “heightened sense of security to protect ourselves.”

Arrest: Several young kids escape injury after woman targets what she thought was an 'Israel school'

Call IndyStar reporter John Tuohy at 317-444-6418 or email him at john.tuohy@indystar.com. Follow him on Facebook and X/Twitter.

This article originally appeared on Indianapolis Star: Indiana mayoral candidates denounce KKK flyer drop at suburban homes