The Brooklyn Paper has the story and there’s an excerpt below. Turns out that the Park Slope flyer remover—the person who has been removing stoop sale signs and other signs from area lamp posts – has a very caring sister who urges the community to be sensitive to her brother’s issues.

“The public needs to understand my brother, that he does this
because he is autistic,” said the sister, who requested anonymity
because there have been threats against her brother as he’s walked his
flier-removal beat throughout Park Slope and nearby Prospect Heights.

The Brooklyn Paper got in touch with the woman after she responded to a story last week
about the activities of the so-called “Ripper.” That story recounted
that some people in the neighborhood are angry that he is pulling down
signs, which are actually illegal, though others defended his
activities as a public service.

She also posted a long letter on the Web site Brooklynian that asked her neighbors to “please leave him be.”

She signed it, “Concerned Sister 11215.”

In a subsequent interview with The Brooklyn Paper, the sister said
her older brother’s sign-removal campaign started about five years ago
and is directly related to his autism.

“He’s not doing this to be an a—hole or a killjoy or to
inconvenience people,” she said. “It is something that his mind
believes he absolutely must do. My mother often describes that he
thinks of it as his job, his mission. He is compelled to do it.”

She said the family has long tried to get him to stop — mostly out
fear that someone who has posted a sign will harm him — but he
continues to keep his daily schedule of tidying the neighborhood.

“He has been confronted many times,” she said. “He gets upset and
comes home and relates the incidents to my mother and to me. There’s a
specific group of people from a moving company who have threatened him
physically. But people have to understand that he is absolutely not
violent and not a threat to anyone.”