Virginia police last night raided the home of George Lincoln Rockwell, founder of a Nazi-type anti-Jewish organization, and seized firearms, swastikas and anti-Semitic material.
Police squads acted after a Virginia grand Jury returned a presentment charging Rockwell with maintaining a public nuisance and action indicating he advocated in Virginia the Nazi policies of Hitler. Commonwealth Attorney William J. Hassan led a squad of police and said they confiscated evidence to support charges against Rockwell.
Sources in Richmond, the state capitol, said the police action was in consonance with a statement by Gov. J. Lindsay Almond last year to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency in which the Governor pledged that Virginia would not tolerate any anti-Semitic extremism.
The grand jury charged Rockwell with producing and distributing “un-American hate literature designed to incite riots. . . and create a breach of the peace. He was also charged with carrying and displaying firearms in a “threatening manner” and permitting his associates to do the same. He was further accused of displaying in his front yard a Nazi swastika and appearing in “storm trooper” uniforms with his aides wearing swastika arm bands and thereby indicating that he ‘advocate’ the principles and policies of Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich of Germany. “
Another charge was that he stopped and illegally searched vehicles traveling on Williamsburg Boulevard in Arlington, impeding the flow of public traffic, and creating a condition which “gravely endangers the health, safety and well-being of all citizens of this community. “
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The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
