Activist Gene Stilp arrested defacing KKK brick on Wilkes-Barre monument

Wilkes-Barre police on Friday arrested activist Gene Stilp after he tried to deface a Ku Klux Klan brick that was placed on a city-owned monument.

Police and City Administrator Rick Gazenski repeatedly warned Stilp against taking his hammer and chisel to the East Coast Knights of the True Invisible Empire brick that was prominently placed on the monument, but Stilp persisted with his plan despite the threat of arrest.

“We’re here today to help the city clean up a problem they have,” Stilp said before being handcuffed. “That problem is that the nice monument there has been defaced by the city by putting an abhorrent brick on there — the brick by the racist group the KKK and their affiliate. And so today, I’m going to take that brick down and clean up the monument for the city.”

For $35, members of the public can purchase bricks and have them engraved and affixed to the sides of the monument, which was erected in 2008. One of those tiles was placed three weeks ago under the name of the East Coast Knights group, the local chapter of the KKK that has a history of recruiting in the city.

Read more: https://www.mcall.com/news/pennsylvania/mc-nws-pa-activist-defaces-kkk-brick-monument-20190712-xir4amhlzrhvzlwlegtswmc6mu-story.html