SAN ANTONIO — A small plastic bag filled with pebbles is what some residents in the Eagle's Bluff neighborhood found Saturday morning.
Pictures shared with KENS 5 show what neighbors also discovered inside.
The bag contained an anti-Semitic flyer about media companies with language and symbols toward Jewish people KENS 5 has chosen to blur out.
We knocked on several doors in the northwest side neighborhood but nobody wanted to speak on camera. However, some bags were still on driveways Sunday afternoon. Others told us they didn't receive a bag or they had trashed them.
We learned from residents this is the first time they have seen these types of flyers left behind in their neighborhood. However for Mark Toubin, this isn't his first encounter.
"We see these events almost every week, particularly on the weekends. It's always the same modus operandi where you have people driving around in the dark, sometimes with masks, trying to avoid any kind cameras or where people can see them. They're not looking for confrontation," said Toubin.
Toubin is the regional director for the Anti-Defamation League. He oversees the southwest region which covers five Texas cities including San Antonio.
A recent audit by the ADL revealed anti-Semitic activity is at an all time high.
"It was up about threefold in Texas and about 34 percent nationally," he said.
Toubin said the rise in incidents could be linked to attention these groups desire.
"When they have that, they are able then to raise money. That's their ultimate goal. Certainly, they want to find people who might share their ideology and help with recruitment. Then thirdly, they want to provoke anxiety among the community."
He strongly encourages residents to make a report with police and the ADL to help track these incidents.
"Contact law enforcement, retain the flyer and if law enforcement needs it, provide it to them. If not, just throw it in the trash where it belongs. We also ask people to report it to the ADL... we track these and then we also use that data in order to better understand what kind of hate is occurring throughout the country and he we can best address. The last thing we ask, for every single act of hate, for every single flyer distributed, is to counter that by doing something positive," he said.
Neighbors told us the police were called but KENS could not confirm a case number before air.
