Richland neighborhood says ‘hate has no home here’

In a Richland neighborhood, little remains of hateful messages left recently. Neighbors said those messages have no place there and investigators are still looking into what happened.  

When Diana Moeller went out of her house in Richland on July 10, a plastic bag caught her eye. It had a rolled-up message inside.

“I could see a couple of words and it was likely very hateful. I literally picked it up with my two fingers. I didn’t even want to touch it. It was so shocking to me, and I took it and I put it immediately in my garbage can, right in the bottom of it,” Moeller said.

Moeller had found an antisemitic flyer. They had been left around North Richland.

Bruce Bjornstad, her partner, had a lot of feelings about it.

“Disgusted, first of all.  Incredulous, that could happen here.  And angry, because they’re not our neighbors, they’re people from the outside, that are coming in and trying to stir up trouble,” Bjornstad said. 

Dave Harvey lives nearby.

“We just never had anything like this,” he said.

Andy Plymale, another neighbor, found graffiti on his house and an anti-LGBTQ+ message spray-painted on the street out front. 

Commander Damon Jansen is with the Richland Police Department Investigations Division. In an email, he said that the graffiti and the flyers are unrelated.

Jansen said police received video regarding the graffiti. However, they don’t have video related to the flyers. 

Harvey said expressions of discrimination are not new to Richland. He’s a historian. 

“Basically, there was so, so-called sunset laws. I know it’s definitely over in Kennewick. Maybe it wasn’t on the law here in Richland, but it surely was followed,” Harvey said. 

He said it started changing after the 1960s and the 1970s, but people should learn from the past.

“Hate has no home here.  And regardless, if we all don’t agree politically, pretty much we respect other people’s opinions,” Harvey said.

Ariel Novick is the associate regional director of the Pacific Northwest Region Anti-Defamation League. She said the flyers are tied to a white supremacist group. 

“There is a loose network of individuals that are all connected. Not they’re wanting to build community and make our community stronger, but really by isolating and scaring a few individuals,” Novik said.

According to the last antisemitic audit published by the League, incidents in Washington increased over 100% from 2022 to 2023, up from 65 to 190 last year.

“There’s definitely more incidents that are taking place on the western part of the state. Some of that is because there is a larger Jewish population,” Novick said.

A’isha Martin is the president of the non-profit Tri-Cities Pride and a board member of PFLAG. 

She said she was not aware of the messages found in North Richland, but has seen similar things happen.

“I’ve definitely seen issues with flags, taking down flags, vandalism of flags … Most of the things happen in Richland, believe it or not,” Martin said.

She says the incident that has perhaps resonated most in the Tri-Cities community is the one that occurred last year at The Emerald of Siam. The restaurant was the target of protests over the holding of family-friendly drag events. 

Martin said Tri-Cities Pride doesn’t track these incidents, but has felt the division on social media while organizing the festival.

“A lot of people I think (are) just misinformed. I think a lot of people don’t really understand the idea and the reasoning behind pride and why it’s even a thing,” Martin said.

Richland City Manager Jon Amundson released a statement the same week of the incidents. He said the city of Richland unequivocally condemns the distribution of antisemitic flyers. 

Anyone impacted is encouraged to report incidents to non-emergency dispatch. Richland police are still investigating.