A hybrid Hallowell City Council meeting was cut short Monday night, after a participant on Zoom identified themselves as Gene Atkinson and began using anti-Semitic hate speech and ranting about 9/11 conspiracy theories.
Hallowell’s new police chief, Chris Lewis, who was set to introduce himself to the community during the meeting after taking the job just a few weeks ago commented on the incident.
“The vulgar language, the hateful language that was starting to come across was extremely disturbing,” he said.
The call came in immediately after city leaders took a moment of silence in honor of the victims of the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks.
“It’s awful. It’s absolutely awful,” said Hallowell City Manager Gary Lamb. “I mean, that was a terrible day in the life of our country.”
When a second caller began shouting racial slurs, city leaders decided to end the meeting.
Police are investigating and say the person or people may face criminal charges, which could be prosecuted under hate speech laws.
“Obviously disrupting a public meeting can be looked at for disorderly conduct,” Chief Lewis said. “It was definitely hateful speech and it was directed at a specific group.”
Lamb said the incident is forcing the city to change how people can participate during public comment on Zoom calls going forward.
“If somebody wants to attend the meeting, they have to email us, ask for the Zoom invitation, and then we will have an IP address to track who they are if they should try and do the same thing in the future,” he said.
Hallowell Police are working with the Maine Attorney General’s Office and the Maine Computer Crimes Task Force in hopes of getting IP addresses, and identifying those who were involved.
