Long Island Railroad backs off refusal to ban Klan recruiting on trains

A spokesman for the Long Island Railroad is walking back a statement claiming there’s no statute against distributing literature in the train system after someone left recruitment fliers for the Ku Klux Klan in a LIRR car.

NBC 4 reports that Carlos Sandoval found the fliers on a Montauk branch train. According to Sandoval, the fliers featured a Klansman parroting the famed Uncle Sam recruitment poster and the phrase, “The KKK Wants you!”

The mayor of Patchogue, NY—a New York village with a large immigrant community—told NBC 4 he’s seen similar fliers on the island since Donald Trump was elected. A wooden placard featuring a similar was found earlier this month at a high school in Minneapolis, MN.

"As a person of color, I really felt personally attacked,” Sandoval told NBC 4.

"Take your hatred and keep it in your own house," he added. "Don't put it in anyone else's."

A spokesperson for the LIRR originally said there were no specific rules prohibiting the distribution of such literature, but later clarified that "the passing out of any literature that is non-MTA literature is prohibited on all platforms and trains.”

Watch the video below, via NBC 4: