Last Friday night as people waited in line for the Sacramento stop of Ariana Grande’s Sweetener Tour, fans were bombarded with anti-Semitic and anti-media propaganda according to Buzzfeed news. Leaflets were dropped outside the Golden 1 Center venue by drone over an estimated “hundreds” of fans. The show was set to take place at a Sacramento State University event, the school’s newspaper reports.
Swastikas and anti-media phrases littered the leaflets along some flyers that specifically stated “Tracy Mapes ©2018”, suggesting that 57-year-old Sacramento resident Tracy Mapes was behind the act. This would not be Mapes’s first propaganda attack on Jewish folks and the media; Mapes dropped other fliers above two NFL games (once at a 49ers game in Santa Clara and another at a Raiders game in Oakland) and was subsequently arrested. He was reportedly released after being charged with a misdemeanor.
Many of the fliers featured phrases like “STOP THE PRESS,” “Who’s side are you on,” and other anti-media and conspiratorial messaging. Some fliers featured swastikas surrounded by words and phrases like “FAKE,” “NEWS,” “TV,” and “PAPERS.” Additionally, the fliers made the unfounded claim that sex workers and felons work for news stations and insinuated that this would somehow discredit news sources.
Here are some of the fliers below:
Different forms of flyers were released over the event here a two different types. @TheStateHornet pic.twitter.com/g8Ua2Urreh
— Dom_V. (@Dom_Vitiello) May 4, 2019