White Americans! Rise up against your betrayers! White Power Through White Unity!

These words surrounded senior Cyla Waheed when she carried her groceries into the Meijer parking lot Saturday evening. White fliers attached to windshields flapped in the wind, advertising the Dec. 10 neo-Nazi protest in Toledo.

Waheed snatched a flier from her car’s windshield wiper, threw her groceries into her car and marched back inside the store.

“I was worried about my safety,” she said. “It’s a hate flier directed toward African Americans, so I was personally affected by it. I just wanted to inform them [store management] about what was going on.”

When Waheed brought the flier to the attention of customer services, the store had already called Bowling Green police in response to other complaints from customers.

According to Lt. Brad Biller, city police received a complaint from Meijer at 6:27 p.m. about the fliers. At the scene, police found Mark E. Martin, 42, of Covington, Ohio placing the fliers on cars, a violation of the BG city ordinance against advertising on private property.

This was also a violation of Meijer policy, according to Al Lawrence, director.

“Good, bad or ugly, we don’t allow solicitation from outside organizations on company property,” he said.

Police asked Martin to leave the property, explaining that if he stayed, he would be in violation of criminal trespassing laws, Biller said.

About an hour after the first complaint, Biller said, police received another call, this time from downtown. National Socialist Movement members, including Martin, were stuffing newspaper boxes with fliers and handing the papers to passersby in front of Newman’s Marathon and Hanna ‘#38; Hanna law office on Main Street, according to Biller.

Since city law also prohibits unauthorized advertising on public property, according to Biller, NSM members were asked to leave, and they did.

Commander of the NSM, Jeff Schoep, said he understands that private property is protected from advertising by law. However, Schoep disagrees with the police’s decision to ask the NSM to leave the public sidewalk.

“I think it’s unconstitutional,” he said. He said he believes other groups would have been allowed to advertise on public property without incident.

“I’m just wondering why communists are allowed to pass out their literature and white nationalists are not,” he said. “It’s a double standard.”

Schoep said NSM members plan to pass out their fliers in several Ohio cities, including Toledo, Cincinnati and Columbus. He said the organization is increasing advertising efforts in order to bring as many people as possible to the protest, which will be held at Toledo City Hall.

Toledo police were unaware of NSM’s advertising plans in other cities, according to Toledo Police Captain Diana Ruiz-Krause. For security reasons, Toledo police are not releasing information about preparation for the neo-Nazi protest, she said.

“Obviously we are making plans,” she said. “We take all information into consideration.”

According to Schoep, NSM members are not trying to stir up violence with their protest.

“We’re not going there to start problems,” he said. “We’re just tired of white people being victimized.”

If gang rioting ensues, as it did Oct. 15, Schoep said, “I think the police will be more prepared this time.” He said he urges the police to shoot rioters under martial law, if rioting gets too far out of control.

While Lawrence downplayed the fliers as, “not a big deal,” Waheed said the papers display a level of racism she has not experienced during her three years in Bowling Green.

“People don’t believe racism still happens,” she said, motioning to the flier. “You can’t deny there’s still this hatred.”