Notebooks With Racist Message Found at K marts

Burbank police are investigating as a hate crime an incident in which 180 notebooks stamped with a white supremacist message were found on the shelves of two K mart stores.

The Mead, Union Comp and Carolina Pad notebooks were stamped with the words: “Earth’s most endangered species: The white race. Help preserve it,” police said Sunday.

Police said store officials believe that the notebooks were probably stamped before arriving at the Burbank and Sunland K marts because the same type of vandalized notebooks were found in both locations. They believe that the notebooks probably were delivered from a company warehouse within the past week.

The message on the notebooks, stamped in black ink, listed a telephone number for a group identified as the Aryan Freedom Fighters, which has a Chatsworth post office box.

Police said the incident was being classified as a hate crime because investigators who called the phone number were greeted with a message that was “race-biased or promoted hatred of another race,” said Burbank police Lt. Van Miller.

The notebooks were removed Saturday night from the shelves of the K mart stores.

“They’re gone. We don’t want to sell them,” said Gentry Long, assistant manager of the Burbank store.

Long said he did not know how many of the notebooks, which contained lined white paper with a glued binding, were sold or how many were returned.

Police said store officials learned of the vandalized notebooks after a customer returned one to the Burbank location.

Long declined further comment.

Regional officials for the chain were not available for comment.