Andrew Oswalt, the Oregon State University graduate student arrested this week for allegedly putting racist bumper stickers on cars at a social justice meeting, didn't keep his activities confined to Corvallis, police records indicate.

Oswalt and three reputed white nationalists were spotted "acting extremely suspicious" on the University of Oregon campus last July 29, according to a UO police report. A campus police officer saw the men just after 11 p.m. near a dormitory during the usually quiet summer term.

Three of the men wore dark clothing and covered their faces, according to police. Oswalt wore a mask and the other two had scarves shielding their faces, the report said.

Oswalt was carrying a stapler and another man had a ladder as they walked toward a white pickup truck, the report said. The officer said the men had fliers with Ku Klux Klan propaganda and others saying, "diversity means fewer white people" or other slogans. The men also had a box of chalk.

Several of the fliers promoted the Daily Stormer, a notorious neo-Nazi website. Another said, "You are what made America great, its protection begins with you," with men with rifles and a wheeled occult symbol known as the sun wheel appropriated by the Nazis.

The police report is the latest confirmation that Oswalt, a student government representative at OSU, has worked alongside white nationalists to spread their materials in public spaces across the state.

Similar fliers have been posted in Ashland, Eugene and Corvallis in the past year. Racist and anti-Semitic messages written in chalk also sprouted on sidewalks last year in Eugene and Corvallis.

Oswalt was arrested that Saturday evening in Eugene on a concealed weapons charge in connection to a stiletto knife that he allegedly carried. A jury in Eugene Municipal court found him not guilty in October.

Oswalt was with Jimmy Marr, David Woods and Justin Marbury then. Marr, a Springfield resident, has claimed credit for displaying anti-Semitic banners and hateful signs on Interstate 5 overpasses last year. He's called for exterminating Jews.

Marbury was arrested in Ashland in January 2017 for allegedly defacing private property with anti-Semitic posters. Woods lives in Corvallis and anti-fascist groups say he participated in an April 2017 white nationalist rally in Portland and has participated in demonstrations denying the existence of the Holocaust with Marr and Oswalt.

According to the UO police report, the four men also were spotted at the Market of Choice grocery store near the UO campus earlier that night yelling racial slurs.

An anti-fascist website this week published photos of Oswalt giving Nazi salutes from a highway overpass, carrying a flag with a swastika on Holocaust Remembrance Day at Marr's house and marching with white nationalists at the rally in Portland last April. Oswalt has declined comment on the photos.

Oregon State declined to say whether Oswalt was still a student or employee at the university, citing confidentiality laws.

A probable cause affidavit from Corvallis police officers released this week also sheds new light on other controversies on the Oregon State campus.

Oswalt was identified as a suspect in the June bumper sticker incident after Corvallis officers posted surveillance photos on Facebook of two men suspected of pasting the offensive stickers on cars and dropping paper leaflets on others outside a First Alternative Natural Foods Co-Op while members of the Showing Up for Racial Justice group held their a monthly meeting inside.

The person who identified Oswalt in the case recognized him as her chemistry teaching assistant. Police didn't contact Oswalt until this week, after reaching his mother in December and learning where he lived.

In another OSU controversy, the recently released police affidavit states Oswalt was the one who put up a Confederate flag hanging in a window across the street from the black cultural center in Corvallis, prompting condemnation from city and university leaders. It was unclear last year who had put up the flag.

The Confederate flag was on display when classes started in the fall, facing a busy street next to OSU's campus and the Lonnie B. Harris Black Cultural Center.

In September, Steve Clark, vice president of University Relations at OSU, called the flag "a representation of slavery and racism" and said it would be disappointing to see it "anywhere in Corvallis, certainly across the street from the black culture center."

A recently released police affidavit says Oswalt lived in the room near campus with the Confederate flag in the window. The address of the building is redacted in the affidavit, but the Corvallis Gazette-Times identified it as "The Pillar," a men's co-op inside a building owned by the Assemblies of God Church.

According to its sign, The Pillar is "a student resource center" provided by the Chi Alpha Christian Fellowship.

The location of Oswalt's room and the description of the flags in his room match up with the photos taken last year of a Confederate flag in a window of The Pillar.

On Friday, Corvallis Mayor Bill Traber added to an earlier statement in an email, saying, "Views expressed by actions such as hanging a confederate flag or placing racist stickers are hateful and against our values. Further, the sticker activities are defacing property and thus investigated as crimes by Corvallis PD. The recent arrest reflects progress in an ongoing investigation; one in which I have no further comment."

Chi Alpha Campus Ministries released a statement saying the flag was displayed by a student unaffiliated with the organization and that it had asked for the flag to be removed.

"Chi Alpha wholly rejects any racist implications of this action," read the statement on its website, "and welcomes students from all backgrounds."

According to an employee of a nearby business in Corvallis, the Confederate flag was still hanging in the window of The Pillar on Friday morning.

The Oregonian's Lizzy Acker and Shane Dixon Kavanaugh contributed to this report

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-- Andrew Theen

atheen@oregonian.com

503-294-4026

@andrewtheen