The Newark NAACP is calling on city council to take “swift and decisive action” in response to a disturbing incident last month in which a council meeting was interrupted by online provocateurs yelling racial slurs.
“The Newark, Delaware, NAACP branch stands in unwavering support of Councilwoman Dwendolyn Creecy, who was subjected to racial slurs, a hate crime, during a recent public meeting,” said the Rev. Blaine Hackett, pastor of St. John AM Church and vice president of the local NAACP chapter. “Such abhorrent language has no place in our city discourse and only serves to divide our community.”
Addressing city council Monday night, he asked the city to launch a thorough investigation, prosecute the culprits to fullest extent of the law and implement stricter protocols to prevent a similar incident from occurring.
“We call on the city council to forcefully condemn this reprehensible behavior and take all necessary steps to ensure a safe and respectful environment for all participants in public meetings,” Hackett said. “The Newark branch of the NAACP also urges the entire community to reject racism and discrimination in all its forms.”
The incident happened during the May 13 council meeting.
Two people participating virtually through the Microsoft Teams online teleconferencing platform unmuted their microphones during a presentation by a University of Delaware representative and suddenly began yelling racist remarks. The comments, which included the n-word, were audible to everyone attending the meeting in person as well as online.
The incident is an example of so-called Zoombombing, which became common early on in the pandemic when many meetings switched to Zoom and other similar platforms. Provocateurs find public Zoom links and then crash government meetings, college lectures and even elementary school classes to disrupt them with offensive comments and explicit images. Incidents are often coordinated through online forums and message boards.
In April 2020, the FBI warned that Zoombombing is far from a harmless prank and could lead to criminal charges, including disrupting a public meeting, computer intrusion, using a computer to commit a crime, hate crimes, fraud or transmitting threatening communications. However, prosecuting the perpetrators can prove difficult, as many mask their IP addresses and may not even be located in the United States.
During the May 13 meeting, Mayor Jerry Clifton quickly condemned the comments and then briefly stepped down from the dais and conferred with a police officer providing security at the meeting.
“I can tell you that this government and this public body absolutely finds comments like that to be absolutely abhorrent,” Clifton said. “No one in this government endorses or agrees with that kind of comment and language. I want to tell the people online and the people here, on behalf of the seven of us on city council and our staff, that we’re sorry that happened. We’re sorry you had to hear that.”
On Monday, Clifton said that incident remains an ongoing investigation and the Newark Police Department is working with “higher level” law enforcement agencies in an attempt to track down the perpetrators.
“As soon as they determine whatever they're going to determine from the investigation, when it's appropriate to do so, it will be made public,” he said.
Lt. Andrew Rubin, a spokesman for the Newark Police Department, confirmed there is still an active investigation into the incident but had no further information to share.
The city also changed the way it handles virtual participants in meetings.
“The way it was set up was everybody's microphone, when they were online, was enabled, and we were trusting them to stay muted until it was their time to talk,” City Solicitor Paul Bilodeau said. “After that, the big change we made is everybody that's online now, their microphone is disabled and will not be allowed to be used at all unless we physically enable it from here. That hopefully should avoid what happened on the 13th. And if somebody does make comments like that, we'll know exactly who they are when it happens.”
Hackett asked council to go a step farther and stop allowing virtual participation, which has been a mainstay of public meetings since the pandemic.
“We truly believe that Zoom should be shut down until we get this matter settled,” he said.
Creecy, who is the first and only Black woman to be elected to municipal government in Newark, thanked the many NAACP members and other residents who packed into council chambers to show support for her Monday night.
“Thank you so much for coming and supporting me in this situation,” Creecy said. “That day was one of the loneliest days here for me.”
Mara Gorman, a Newark resident, told Creecy and the other council members that she felt it was important for residents to speak out.
“I just want you to know, Councilwoman Creecy, that although you felt so lonely in that moment, you are not alone. I'm a big believer that the work of anti-racism is an unending process for white people,” Gorman said. “I think it is our responsibility to stand up and show the ways that we are allies.”
“It's our responsibility to make sure that a person who is the victim of a situation like this, of a crime like this, does not feel alone,” she added. “I can't understand exactly how you felt, but I appreciate how terrible that must have been for you and I'm deeply sorry. I personally will continue to work in my community in Newark to make sure that nothing like that happens again.”
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