Anti-Semitic message cleared from San Anselmo park.
San Anselmo removed a series of numbers from a park scoreboard on Monday after residents described it as antiSemitic code.
Isaac Taylor said he was leaving a frozen yogurt establishment around 7:30 p.m. Sunday when he walked past the Memorial Park scoreboard and saw the numbers “1488” placed prominently on it.
Taylor said he recognized the numbers as a reference to “Fourteen Words,” or two 14word slogans that originated with White supremacist David Eden Lane, a member of a domestic terrorist group.
The double eight refers to the eighth letter of the alphabet, signifying HH for “heil Hitler,” according to news reports.
A group of residents alerted town officials by Monday morning. Greg Mihan, the town recreation supervisor, arrived to remove them himself.
Mihan said the numbers have been locked in a shed.
“I just informed everyone that was there, we don’t condone what is here, we’re going to take these numbers down,” he said.
“These numbers are known to represent White nationalism and anti-Semitism,” Town Manager David Donery said. “The town of San Anselmo takes all reports of hate crimes and hate speech seriously.”
The town contacted the Central Marin Police Authority, which took a report. Police Chief Michael Norton said his agency is “looking into the matter to see if it’s determined to be hate speech or a hate crime.” He said the person who placed the numbers has not been identified.
Taylor, the parent of a biracial child, said the discovery “definitely made me uncomfortable and bummed.”
“These numbers are known to represent White nationalism and anti-Semitism.”
— David Donery, town manager
“I felt personally insulted and targeted,” he said.
Taylor added he hopes elected officials will respond quickly to the incident.
“Condemning these kinds of messages is a bare minimum,” he said. “I just think that we can’t be sort of comfortable or complacent about these things — even if it doesn’t directly impact you because you’re not a minority, it certainly impacts people in our community.”
San Anselmo resident Meghan O’Hare said she hopes town officials will respond strongly to the incident and that until Monday, she had not been aware of the meaning of the number sequence.
“I was outraged to find out
what it meant and nervous … and very motivated to try to get some outreach and education around it. I will be talking to all my friends about this in the community,” O’Hare added.
Mayor Brian Colbert said he was disturbed to hear about the incident, particularly after having received racist phone threats in May. He also witnessed a recent incident involving anti-Semitic stickers passed out in Fairfax.
“I was actually at Memorial Park yesterday morning with my young daughter playing tennis at the courts,” he said. “It’s deeply troubling to me on many levels.”