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Extremist Incidents Nearly Doubled In Arizona Since 2016, 2017

The Anti-Defamation League has documented 88 extremist incidents in Arizona over the last couple years.

The tally nearly doubled from 2016 and 2017.

Acts of Anti-Semitism accounted for the majority of 2018 and 2019 incidents in Arizona counted by the Anti-Defamation League. For example, a motorist threw a glass bottle at a Jewish man and his two children as they walked home in Phoenix. In Flagstaff, someone broke into a synagogue and painted swastikas on the windows.

The Anti-Defamation League’s new data also show a 500% jump in the distribution of white supremacist propaganda in Arizona since 2016 and 2017.

White supremacist events in 2018 and 2019 involved freeway banners in Wickenburg and Tucson that called immigrants invaders.

Matthew Casey has won Edward R. Murrow awards for hard news and sports reporting since he joined KJZZ as a senior field correspondent in 2015.