Months after the vigilantes, a divide persists in Snohomish

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

SNOHOMISH — Mayor John Kartak reached a breaking point earlier this month, when someone mailed a box to his home address.

Inside was a cookie shaped like male genitalia, with an obscene message spelled in cutout newsprint, telling him to eat it.

-snip-

It has been an exhausting year all across the country — between a pandemic and widespread social unrest — but few small cities in the Pacific Northwest have seen vitriol and divisions come to light quite like Snohomish.

The tipping point came on May 31, when crowds of people gathered downtown, some carrying guns, in response to a rumor that a local anti-fascist group planned to loot downtown businesses.

No rioters showed up. Instead, news cameras captured images of Confederate flags and men flashing racist symbols. Kartak said in radio interviews that only a small fraction of the people who showed up were affiliated with fringe groups, on either the far right or far left, and that they do not define the town.

“Our community tends to be welcoming to all people of all races, all colors, all genders,” Kartak said earlier this year on conservative talk radio.

https://www.heraldnet.com/news/months-after-the-vigilantes-a-divide-persists-in-snohomish/?email=[e-mail]

[samnsara]

1. used to love shopping there..now I avoid it.

[captain queeg]

2. I lived there for about a year in the 70s

It was a nice little town back then but leaned toward redneck. Seems to have become a bedroom community for Seattle these days but I’m sure there are plenty of rednecks in the area.