The people responsible for posting a video with the sign “Jesus loves white children” outside of Pembroke’s elementary school this week shared similar videos on social media in the last year that appeared to have been filmed outside other locations around the state, including two other area schools.

Last November, the account posted a video of a masked child wearing a red shirt with the same racist message outside of the Bow Elementary and Memorial Schools. Last March, the account posted a video with the message on a sign in front of John Stark Regional High School. The videos may have been filmed at each location, or computer-generated, or both.

A video of a masked child standing in front of the Pembroke Hill School that was posted on Saturday sparked widespread outrage in town.

The other two videos appear to have gone largely unnoticed by the public.

Bow and Dunbarton superintendent Marcy Kelley wrote in an email on Thursday that her office became aware of the video outside their schools “shortly after it was posted” and ultimately concluded that it had been “photoshopped.” She wrote that the sign behind the child in the video had been removed prior to the start of the 2023-24 school year, over a year before the video was posted.

Jacqueline Coe, the superintendent of the school administrative unit that includes John Stark, wrote in an email that she had not been aware of the video and would look into it next week. The Weare Police Department also did not receive any reports about the sign or video, according to officer Austin Maguire.

The Youtube account, called JesusofSurftown, has posted dozens of videos with the white sign emblazoned with nearly all capital letters proclaiming “JESUS LOVES WHiTE CHiLDREN” in various places across New Hampshire since the account was created in 2023. In addition to the schools, a video was posted outside the Jewish Federation of New Hampshire in January and photos with the sign have been posted outside of various churches.

Prior to the Pembroke video, the only other one that had received significant media attention involved a flag with the same message that hung over a bridge above I-293 in Manchester in the spring of 2023.

Some of the 175 videos posted to the account have the characteristic signs of AI manipulation. This led some on social media to speculate about whether the account owner had in fact filmed the videos at the locations depicted.

A Manchester woman who has been publicly linked to the account did not answer a phone call made Thursday to a number associated with her.

Most of the videos on the account include some combination of three people – two of whom are children and the third of whom is a young woman. While the people wear masks or face away from the camera in most of the videos that include the sign, they appear unmasked in other videos posted to the account.

At least one video includes a young boy in the “Jesus Loves White Children” shirt holding a gun.

Pembroke police chief Gary Gaskell said his department is “looking into” the video that appeared to have been shot outside of Pembroke Hill School.

He said he hadn’t yet confirmed whether the video was in fact shot outside the school. 

Gaskell said he was aware of the video from Bow but not the one from John Stark.

Patty Sherman, the superintendent of the school district that includes Pembroke, wrote in a message to families this week that the district had “been made aware of a disturbing video that was taken in front of the Pembroke Hill School.”

“Administration immediately contacted the Pembroke Police Department and we have been assisting them with their ongoing investigation,” Sherman wrote.

Jeremy Margolis can be contacted at jmargolis@cmonitor.com.