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SAUGUS, Mass. (WBZ NewsRadio) — Boston-area officials are condemning the hanging of antisemitic banners across Route 1 in Saugus on Sunday. The New England-based white supremacist group NSC-131 took responsibility for the banners hung on the Walnut St. Bridge on the 21st anniversary of 9/11 over the weekend, which read "Jews Did 9/11" and "Defend White Communities."
Saugus Police said the signs were held up by a group of men in masks at about 6:00 PM Sunday, and NSC-131 posted about the banners on their Gab social media account.
Police said they were called to the scene, but "determined that the men were not breaking laws," despite the contents of the banners. They did condemn the messages, saying that the department "condemn[s] antisemitism and hate in all its forms."
Anti-Defamation League Executive Director Robert Trestan responded to the banners on Monday, saying that "The scapegoating of the Jewish community is an age-old but exceedingly harmful antisemitic trope that must be called out and condemned whenever and wherever it occurs." He also called the men that put up the banners "cowardly masked extremists."
NSC-131 has been at the center of several controversies in over the summer, including a demonstration at a Drag Queen Story Hour in Jamaica Plain which ended in arrests.
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