Blumenthal Visits West Hartford; Announces Money To Combat Hate Crimes

WEST HARTFORD, CT — Roughly a week after a white supremacist group distributed flyers around West Hartford, Sen. Richard Blumenthal visited the town to announce a bill that grants federal funding to combat hate crimes.

Blumenthal introduced the NO HATE Act in the West Hartford Town Council Chambers alongside members of the Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish Federation of Greater Hartford and the West Hartford Police Department.

The bill provides $26 million in federal funding to combat hate crimes — including $5 million for states and municipalities — and allocates $21 million to the Department of Justice's Community Relations Service, which helps communities facing discrimination-based conflict, officials said.

On April 25, a group called the "New England Nationalist Social Club" placed flyers in the area of Whitman Avenue, Fernridge Park, Walton Drive and Braeburn Road, police said.

Read more: 'Nationalist' Flyers Littered West Hartford Neighborhoods: Police

The flyers read "We stand for the security and prosperity of White New Englanders" and described Black Lives Matter as a "criminal, anti-American and anti-white street gang," the Hartford Courant reported.

The Anti-Defamation League describes the Nationalist Social Club as a neo-Nazi group with small, autonomous regional chapters — such as the New England chapter — nationwide and abroad.