From: New Liberation News Service <nlns@igc.apc.org>
Subject: NLNS: Cops & the Klan
Followup-To: alt.activism.d
Originator: daemon@pencil.cs.missouri.edu
Organization: ?
Date: Tue, 22 Dec 1992 13:23:19 GMT

/* Written  9:57 pm  Dec 20, 1992 by nlns@igc.apc.org in igc:nlns.samples */
/* ---------- "NLNS PACKET 3.6 *** 12/11/92" ---------- */

Cops & the Klan
Turning the Tide

LOS ANGELES, CA (NLNS)--The problem of organized white 
supremacist activity among law enforcement and other uniformed services is 
widespread, and is only growing in the 90's, despite "affirmative action" in 
police departments (or sometimes because of entrenched resistance to it 
among white cops).
	The latest disclosures regarding Robert Bauman, a civilian employee 
of the LAPD for 23 years, uderscore the seriousness of the problem. 
Assigned to investigate applicants for police permits, with access to criminal 
records, tax filings and other data, Bauman was discovered by undercover 
LA and Huntington Beach cops participating in activities organized by Tom 
Metzger and other white supremacists in Orange County. Huntington Beach 
police reported that he apparently engaged in counter-surveillance activity 
against them, disrupting their attempt to cover the meeting and apparently 
identifying them as cops to other participants.
	A subsequent investigation by the LAPD's Anti-Terrorist Task 
Force and by Internal Affairs uncovered other connections to white 
supremacists activity, and after a warrant was obtained, a search of 
Bauman's home disclosed a vast collection of material on the nazis and 
white supremacist literature. Bauman however, claims he is only an 
independent historical researcher, not affiliated with Metzger.
	Whatever his affiliation, Bauman used his access to LAPD 
computers to run checks on Metzger, Stan Witez of the local nazi party, 
Arnold Schwarzenegger, Irv Rubin of the JDL, a private investigator and 
Peace & Freedom Party candidate, Jan Tucker, and as many as 200 others. 
His defense is that he was obtaining the information for his personal 
historical research and interest in right woing and left wing groups. He says 
he was angry at Rubin for disrupting a historical society meeting in 
Pasadena, apparently a reference to the holocaust-revisionist outfit, the 
Institute for Historical Review, tied in to Willis Carto's Spotlight/Liberty 
Lobby network and Joe Fields' Populist Party.
	Bauman has been given a 10-day suspension, and new Police Chief 
Willie Williams promises to tighten up access to police computers. But 
Bauman has appealed his suspension, saying even 10 days is too much, and 
citing the cases of at least 45 other cops and civilian employees who have 
been disciplined in the last three years for using the computers for 
"unofficial business." Most received only reprimands or one or two day 
suspensions.
	Meanwhile over at the Sheriff's Department, Sheriff Block has been 
criticized for not implimenting the reforms proposed by Judge Kolts. The 
Kolts report on the Los Angeles Sheriff's Department, like the earlier 
Christopher Commission report on the LAPD, proposed mostly band-aid 
solutions for a serious problem. But the worst part of the Kolts whitewash 
of the LASD was its determination that that there is no proven foundation to 
charges of organized white supremacist activity in the shreiff's department, 
specifically through such quasi-gang formations as the Vikings and the 
Cavemen, whose members have been involved in shootings and killings of 
Black and Latino youth,
	This finding fly in the face of a court ruling that the Vikings were a 
"neo-nazi" formation, and another requiring that if prosecutors could talk of 
the gang affiliations of defendants, the Viking affiliation of sheriff's 
deputies also be entered into evidence. One such ruling, requiring that the 
LASD actually abide by its own stated guidelines on the use of force, was 
recently voided by appeals court as being "too far-reaching."
	But the Kolts report's most glaring omission illuminates the reality 
of organized racist activity in the department. In criticizing DA Ira Reiner's 
refusal to prosecute deputies for brutality or murder, the Kolts report cites 
the case of on deputy who went our "looking for trouble" on New Year's 
Eve two years ago. He was overheard making racist comments and ended 
up shooting and killing a Mexican national. Yet Kolts fails to mention that 
the deputy involved, Brian Kazmierski, had previously been investigated by 
the FBI and kicked off the force for burning crosses inside the county jail to 
intimidate Black prisoners. Kazmierski had been reinstated to the 
department on the express orders of Sheriff Sherman Block. The media 
went along with this cover-up, not reporting on Kazmierski's history, and 
refusing to print letters which pointed it out.
	Another area of white supremacist involvement has been among fire 
fighters. The LA Fire Fighters Association recently ran an ad showing a fire 
dog under the cross-hairs of a gun, with "bullet-holes" in the ad, to protest 
budget cuts. The ad was a thinly-veiled reference to the LA uprising, in 
which some fire-fighters were fired upon. But much more naked racism has 
come to light among fire departments nationwide. In 1989, for example, the 
City Council of Montgomery, MD was forced to withhold funding from a 
volunteer fire deparment after the white chief called a Black volunteer 
"nigger boy." In 1990, a Black cop who had helped expose Carrollton, GA 
fire chief L.A. Dukes for having allegedly designated "nigger beds" for 
African-American fire-fighters, was found drowned under mysterious 
circumstances. In April of this year, Scott Lowe, the former fire chief of 
Grovetown, GA, who had been exposed as a grand titan of the Christian 
Knights Klan, was arrested for having burned a cross at the home of a local 
Black family back in 1987.
	Open racism and hidden white supremacist involvement are an even 
more serious probelm among police forces. In Houston, where the Klan has 
been waging an active recruitment campaign among the police for over a 
year, a police corporal, Al Csaszar, was put on paid leave in July of this 
year after beating a Nigerian immigrant and yelling racist epithets at him. 
His partner was also taken out of the field. In June, Boynton-Beach, FL 
police officer Dave Demarest sought reinstatement the the department after 
having been fired in February for having flaunted a swastika tattoo to 
several other cops, including a Jewish woman officer. In his defense, 
Demarest presented that racism and nazism were widespread and generally 
accepted at the department. He submitted as evidence a photo of two 
officers dressed in nazi uniforms for a Halloween party; the picture had 
been displayed in the office of the deputy chief. A lawyer for Demarest said 
that another detective had mounted a picture of a Black man on his office 
wall, captioned "Is it a chimp?"
	Such incidents are not restricted to the south by any means. In 
Denver, CO in August, two cops, Bill Carter and Ruth Potter, of the 
intelligence unit assigned to monitor Klan activities, were re-assigned after 
they sent baby shower gifts to Klan leader Shawn Slater, a "former" Nazi 
skin-head. In a copyrighted interview with Kerwin Brook, an anonymous 
white Denver police officer described how many cops will go out and call 
Black or Mexicano people on the streets "nigger" or "spic," hoping to 
provoke an angry response and a fight where they can jump or arrest the 
person. In a separate article, Brook reports the experience of 13-year-old 
Jessica Vargas, who was on her way to protest a Klan rally, when a Denver 
cop flashed a KKK hand sign at her and her friends. "We know the cops 
are against us, but to see him do it with his own hands! And he just 
smirks," said Vargas. "You just get shocked."
	In Texas, a deputy sheriff named Scott Tschirhart brutally beat two 
young Chicanos last July; Tschirhart had been forced off the Houston police 
after killing three Black men. Here in CA, it's ironic that the very 
Huntington Beach police department which uncovered Bauman's 
involvement with racist and anti-semitic groups is being charged with anti-
semitism and harassment by two Jewish cops, who found themselves the 
victims of constant slurs by fellow officers and superiors. In the northwest, 
several police forces have recently had Richard Masker address them about 
white supremacist groups. Masker was fired from a municipal job in 
Oregon for mailing out Hitler birthday cards, and in August, he was 
reprimanded at a similar job in Idaho for sending a letter to a business 
association accusing it of being "part of an international marxist, Zioist 
conspiracy."
	Another area of great concern is white supremacist involvement in 
the military. In August, members of the Aryan National Front and the 
Confederate Hammer Skins, along with Klan leader Bill Riccio, were 
arrested in possession of military explosives and ammunition for machine 
guns at an Aryan Fest concert. Further arrests are expected among military 
personnel at Fort Benning, GA. In Colorado, the army was forced to issue 
a ban in July on military personnel attending Klan organizing rallies at Fort 
Carson and threaten GI's with discharge if they got involved in Shawn 
Slater's KKK campaign.
	One particular are of bigotry among cops is anti-gay sentiments and 
violence. In Dallas. TX, for example, the City Council voted earlier this 
year to uphold a police department ban on hiring gays and lesbians. The 
Dallas PD uses a 100-year old Texas sodomy law to reject such applicants; 
people who apply to be cops in Dallas are subjected to a lie detector test and 
asked if they have ever committed a homosexual act. In Salt Lake City last 
year, a cop was suspended for an off-duty gay bashing when he and two 
friends were charged with assault and anti-gay name calling against a gay 
man. In Santa Cruz County in northern California last year, Sheriff Al 
Noren, reluctantly forced to meet with gay leaders to discuss harassment of 
gays by deputies, issued a memo calling the gay community "vicious and 
devious." Noren defended his remarks as justified because one gay 
protestor had described a deputy he encountered as "obviously a nazi." The 
sheriff said he considered that remark "vicious."

[PART has available a full length research report "BLUE BY DAY, WHITE 
BY NIGHT?" about cops and the Klan, with dozens of documented  
incidents of organized white supremacist involvement in police, military and 
other uniformed forces over the past decade or more. It's available for 
$2.00 from PART, PO Box 1990, Burbank, CA 91507.]

Turning the Tide is published by People Against Racist Terror, which is a 
national anti-racist organizing paper. Their address is printed above. 

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