LYNNWOOD, Wash. — A Lynnwood council meeting discussing tax increases descended into a vitriolic antisemitic rant Monday night.
Several speakers stood and began spewing vile statements targeting the Jewish community, forcing the mayor and city attorney to step in and cut them off.
“Send the K*** to the Congo and the N***** to Israel F*** you guy,” said Lynnwood resident Matthew North.
That was the vulgar end to three speakers rambling with conspiracy theories against the Jewish community.
All of the comments were made over Zoom.
The first two were allowed to get through their three-minute allotted time before the mayor stepped in.
“I want to say that Israel is not our ally, these people are lower than rats, they are blood p**** s****** vampires,” said Lynnwood resident Richard.
“Excuse me Richard you need to clean up your language and have five seconds left,” said the Lynnwood Mayor.
Several of the councilmembers and even the final public commenter spoke up, denounced the expressions of hate, and urged officials to cut people off sooner.
After those comments, the city attorney did speak up and asked that during limited public discussion, comments should be limited to the topic at hand.
The city also sent us a statement, saying in part, “We will not tolerate speech that infringes on the rights of others. We are taking steps to improve our practices and procedures including working with our attorney and IT department to identify how we can better address future incidents of this nature moving forward.”
Meanwhile, the Tacoma City Council had to deal with similar hate speech interruptions Tuesday night.
This time a half dozen people, once again all on Zoom.
Tacoma Mayor Victoria Woodard was very proactive and shut down the speakers almost immediately. They took a break after initial public comment and also canceled the community forum for the night.
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