RUTLAND, Vt. (AP) – An organization that tracks hate groups across the country says the Ku Klux Klan has active chapters in Rutland and Hardwick.
But no official in Rutland or Hardwick has detected the presence of the KKK in the areas.
Mark Potok of the Alabama-based Southern Poverty Law Center said the organization was active in the Rutland area in 2006.
He said the KKK was linked to Rutland through a local post office box.
“When a group claims chapters in a given place, we list them unless we have a reason to believe it is false,” he said. “Our listings say that at some point in calendar year 2006, this group was active.”
Rutland police Detective Sgt. Kevin Stevens said he’d never heard of the KKK being active in the area.
Hardwick Police Chief James Dziobek said he hadn’t heard of anything in his community, either.
“I haven’t heard of any cross-burnings or sheet-walkings,” he said.
But Potok said the KKK, which refers to itself as the “invisible army,” could still be there.
“Very frequently, authorities in a given community are surprised to find a hate group operating in their town or operating a mailbox, especially if it turns out to be a drop box,” Potok said. “Especially in a state like Vermont, where the Klan is not very popular, you won’t see your local Klan in public. Just because local police and local anti-racism groups don’t know about it does not make it not true.”
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