The FBI raids that took place last week in Lakewood, New Jersey are not a grand citywide color war breakout. Many families were under the impression that at some point the Mayor of Lakewood would come out and announce over a huge megaphone "Color War" but this will not be. The mayor's office confirmed that the raids were indeed real and that the city would not go to this extent in planting so much fear into the people just to make a color war breakout.
Despite the mayor's office confirming that this was not a color war breakout, many people in the town still believe that the mayor's office is simply prolonging the breakout to make it feel more real.
Residents who have called the Social Services department to declare their actual income and abandon their assistance programs have said that they would feel rather annoyed if this was indeed a color war breakout.
Late Sunday residents could be seen in the streets chanting, '1-2-3-4 WE WANT COLOR WAR, 5-6-7-8 WE DON'T WANT TO WAIT'. Rabbonim, camp and community leaders have long since abandoned the use of law enforcement for color war breakouts because it causes too much fear and leads to "cry wolf" type situations. However, the FBI jackets that were worn by agents looked a lot like the Purim ones, so it led to the thinking that perhaps a special heter was given for the city wide color war.
The Mayor of Lakewood has said that for now it doesn't seem like there will be a color war. "This is pretty much a black and white type of situation, there are no gray areas and certainly no color war".