North Carolina Police Investigating Second Neo-Nazi Banner Hung on Highway Overpass

Police in North Carolina have launched an investigation after a banner bearing antisemitic and neo-Nazi messages was hung above a highway overpass on Sunday, one week after a similar banner was discovered at an overpass in the same area.

The banner was spotted early on Christmas Day and then removed from the Pineywood Church Road overpass overlooking the US 1 highway in the Cameron area. It carried the slogan “A touch of death time” and was signed by the “NS [National Socialist] Resistance Front,” a previously-unknown neo-Nazi group that may be an offshoot of existing white supremacist organizations. At the base of the banner were two swastikas and the numerals “1488” — neo-Nazi code for the “14 words,” a white supremacist mantra invoked by far-right groups, along with the Nazi slogan “Heil Hitler.”

Exactly one week earlier, a similar banner was removed by police officers from the James Street overpass in Vass, about five miles south of the latest sign, hours before the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah commenced. That banner declared “Bring it all Down” along with the “1488” signature.

Chief Deputy Richard Maness of the Moore County Sheriff’s Office told local news outlet The Pilot that his department was “going to investigate fully” whether the banner found on Sunday was connected to the previous week’s outrage.

“We’re going to give it everything we’ve got,” Maness said.

It is not clear whether the banners in North Carolina are linked to the so-called “Goyim Defense League” (GDL), a neo-Nazi group that has blitzed residential neighborhoods around the country with the leaflets falsely claiming that the COVID-19 pandemic was the consequence of a Jewish conspiracy. The group has also hung banners defaming Jews and denying the Holocaust from highway overpasses, as well as staging small demonstrations outside Jewish community centers.