Second neo-Nazi arrested for violating Florida’s new public nuisance law, police say

A second neo-Nazi has been arrested after he was recorded hanging swastikas and other anti-Semitic banners on a bridge near Orlando — a violation of Florida’s new public nuisance law — as authorities search for two more suspects, police say.

The law — signed by Gov. Ron DeSantis in April — prohibits people intentionally displaying or projecting messages on a property without the written consent of its owner. DeSantis has said it gives law enforcement agencies a new tool to stop perpetrators of anti-Semitic incidents and those who target religious communities.

“The actions by this suspect will not be tolerated in the great state of Florida,” Florida Department of Law Enforcement Commissioner Mark Glass said Monday in statement. “I thank Governor DeSantis for his continued support and our FDLE agents and partners who assisted in this investigation.”

Anthony James Altick turned himself in on Sunday in Alachua County and he was quickly released after posting a $500 bond, the local sheriff’s office told the Miami Herald. The 36-year-old Louisiana man is being charged with a criminal mischief first-degree misdemeanor.

Altick’s arrest warrant says that an FDLE agent observed an online video showing members of the “Order of the Black Sun,” an anti-Semitic group, dressed in black or military-style camouflage clothing affixing signs and banners along the Daryl Carter Parkway bridge near Orlando on June 10.

According to the agent, Altick and Jason James Brown, a 48-year-old Cape Canaveral man arrested last week, were seen affixing a swastika flag to the bridge. Other individuals installed a flag and a banner in support of white power and other racist messages.

READ MORE: Florida police arrest neo-Nazi. They say he violated the state’s new public nuisance law

The agent noted that an officer with the Orange County sheriff’s Office, who was at the location on June 10, witnessed Altick, Brown and the others affixing the hate-filled signs onto the bridge’s fence so eastbound Interstate 4 drivers could see them.

“The displaying of these signs and banners onto the fence was knowingly and intentionally done without the written consent of Orange County,” the FDLE agent said.

FDLE has declined to release the names of the two other wanted persons citing an “active criminal intelligence information” exemption.

Anti-Semitic groups, including the one Altick and Brown are allegedly members of, waved swastika flags, performed Hitler salutes and shouted hateful messages against Jewish people in outside of Walt Disney World Resort and in another area of Central Florida on Sept. 2, according to the Anti-Defamation League, an organization that monitors anti-Semitic incidents.

A week earlier, a white gunman with a swastika-emblazoned assault-style rifle killed three Black people at a Dollar General store in Jacksonville.

Nationally, reported hate crime incidents increased 11.6% from 8,120 in 2020 to 9,065 in 2021, according to an FBI report released earlier this year. Around 65% of victims were targeted because of the offenders’ race, ethnicity or ancestry bias, the FBI said.