NetNews Usenet Archive 1992 #31/NN_1992_31.iso/spool/misc/activism/progress/9555

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From: New Liberation News Service <[e-mail]>
Subject: NLNS: Cops & the Klan
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/* Written  9:57 pm  Dec 20, 1992 by [e-mail] 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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