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Santa Rosa police are investigating the source of anonymous letters, including one mailed to the Sonoma County Republican Party, calling for violence against U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement agents.
The 12-page letter, titled “A Real American Response to Foreign Terrorist Invasions,” calls for a “real war” to be brought against ICE and its agents, citing the recent surge in ICE operations in cities across the country, including in Minneapolis, where federal agents fatally shot two people in January.
The sweeping operations have prompted protests across the nation, including in Sonoma County, with demonstrators calling for the end of major ICE deployments and for Congress to halt future funding to the agency.
The letter, shared with The Press Democrat, includes diagrams of how to make an improvised explosive device and describes ICE agents as “low-IQ trigger happy domestic terrorists” deployed as a “foreign invader force against any innocent citizen.”
The tirade is laden with references to articles about ICE operations in cities and the conditions in detention centers, as well as as well as photos of ICE agents and people they have detained. It also calls out private companies Geo Group and CoreCivic, which operate some of the detention centers being used.
The letter was addressed to Sonoma County Republican Party’s Santa Rosa address, according to Debbie LeBoy, the group’s chair. The organization received the letter Jan. 20 and reported it to local law enforcement on Jan. 22, after opening it, she said.
“We hope that our community, citizens, voters in our community would agree with us that both sides would never want anything to go as far as violence and telling someone how to hurt someone else, is not it at all,” LeBoy said.
The Santa Rosa Police Department’s Violent Crimes Investigations Team is investigating the letters and the Northern California Regional Intelligence Center, a hub for state and local law enforcement, has also been notified, Santa Rosa police Sgt. Patricia Seffens said.
Not long after reporting the letter, LeBoy said she learned a similar letter had been sent to Geo Group in Florida, but rather than leaving the return address blank, the sender had listed the Sonoma County Republican Party as sender.
Seffens said she could not share details of the investigation but confirmed a private company in a different state received a similar letter with the local Republican Party as the return address.
The connection, if any, between the known recipients is being investigated as a potential lead, Seffens said.
No other letters have been reported to the department, she added.
You can reach Staff Writer Emma Murphy at 707-521-5228 or emma.murphy@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter @MurphReports.
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