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White Supremacist (Domestic Terrorist) Infiltration Of Law Enforcement, Armed Forces And Public Office - Page 1

White supremacists are domestic terrorist who have infiltrated our law enforcement agencies, our armed forces and public office to protect white supremacist, promote the white supremacist agenda and to deprive black people, other minorities and people who disagree with of their rights, their freedom and their lives. #WhiteSupremacist, #WhiteSupremacistCop, #WhiteNationalist, #RightWingExtremists, #KKK, #Racist, #Racism, #Hate, #Bigot
It's the week in extremism from USA TODAY.
Will Carless

The Pentagon appears to have failed to implement bold reforms – announced more than two years ago – aimed at stamping out extremism in the military, a USA TODAY investigation has found. Meanwhile, as things heat up at the U.S.-Mexico border, members of Congress are pressing the Department of Homeland Security on the status of its own extremism-related reforms. And a country music singer is being criticized over a song with violent lyrics and a music video filmed outside a courthouse that was home to a notorious Southern lynching and racial conflict. It's the week in extremism.
By JASON DEAREN

GAINESVILLE, Fla. (AP) — Dozens of robed Ku Klux Klansmen gathered around a burning cross in a remote field in North Florida. It was December 2014, and after the cross lighting ceremony ended, three klansmen asked for a quiet aside with the group’s Grand Knighthawk, a klan hitman. The knighthawk was Joe Moore, a former Army sniper who’d joined the group and quickly risen through the ranks due to his military background. The men handed Moore a photograph of a Black man that they wanted killed.

The story of the klan’s murder plot and the hitman’s secret recordings made over months in 2015 formed the basis of an Associated Press 2021 investigative series called “The Badge and The Cross,” which used the story as a jumping off point to explore the issue of white supremacist group infiltration of law enforcement.
By JASON DEAREN

In June, three Florida prison guards who boasted of being white supremacists beat, pepper sprayed and used a stun gun on an inmate who screamed “I can’t breathe!” at a prison near the Alabama border, according to a fellow inmate who reported it to the state. The next day, the officers at Jackson Correctional Institution did it again to another inmate, the report filed with the Florida Department of Corrections’ Office of Inspector General stated.

“If you notice these two incidents were people of color. They (the guards) let it be known they are white supremacist,” the inmate Jamaal Reynolds wrote. “The Black officers and white officers don’t even mingle with each other. Every day they create a hostile environment trying to provoke us so they can have a reason to put their hands on us.”

Both incidents occurred in view of surveillance cameras, he said. Reynolds’ neatly printed letter included the exact times and locations and named the officers and inmates. It’s the type of specific information that would have made it easier for officials to determine if the reports were legitimate. But the inspector general’s office did not investigate, corrections spokeswoman Molly Best said. Best did not provide further explanation, and the department hasn’t responded to The Associated Press’ August public records requests for the videos.
Tom Dreisbach, Meg Anderson

As a violent mob descended on the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, lawmakers and aides hid wherever they could, waiting for the military and police to arrive. But many of those who stormed the Capitol were military veterans themselves, who had once sworn to protect the Constitution. In fact, an NPR analysis has found that nearly 1 in 5 people charged over their alleged involvement in the attack on the U.S. Capitol appear to have a military history.

NPR compiled a list of individuals facing federal or District of Columbia charges in connection with the events of Jan. 6. Of more than 140 charged so far, a review of military records, social media accounts, court documents and news reports indicate at least 27 of those charged, or nearly 20%, have served or are currently serving in the U.S. military. To put that number in perspective, only about 7% of all American adults are military veterans, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

Several veterans are charged with violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds. One of them is Larry Rendall Brock Jr. The Air Force veteran was photographed in a military-style helmet and tactical vest carrying flex cuffs inside the Capitol. He posted on Facebook that he was preparing for a "Second Civil War," according to documents filed in federal court. In the weeks after Biden's victory, Brock posted that "we are now under occupation by a hostile governing force." more...
Two of them made threatening comments toward lawmakers, and one expressed support for President Trump. The others were removed for a wide variety of reasons.
By Eric Schmitt and Helene Cooper

WASHINGTON — Twelve National Guard members have been removed from duties related to the inauguration of President-elect Joseph R. Biden Jr., two of them for expressing anti-government sentiments, Defense Department officials said on Tuesday. Two of the members were removed over texts and social media posts that made threatening comments toward political officials, Pentagon officials said. They declined to specify the exact nature of the threats. “I will share that they were inappropriate,” Gen. Daniel R. Hokanson, the chief of the National Guard Bureau, told reporters during a telephone briefing. Two officials described the texts as broad in nature — not directed specifically at Mr. Biden or Vice President-elect Kamala Harris, but rather at lawmakers as a whole. One of the service members removed, the officials said, made a point of expressing support for President Trump in addition to making menacing comments. more...
Rashad Robinson

White nationalists pervade law enforcement. Fighting far right violence means continuing our fight for police accountability. As mass violence continues, many of us have become rightly afraid for the people we love. We want justice, but we also want protection. So what are the solutions we’re hearing about following this month’s violence? One idea we must reject is the idea of trusting law enforcement to protect us from white nationalist violence, given how much they contribute to it. If people in law enforcement want to be seen as experts on defeating white nationalism, shouldn’t they have to get rid of all the white nationalists in their own ranks first? White nationalists pervade law enforcement. There is a long history of the military, police and other authorities supporting, protecting or even being members of white supremacy groups. But it’s not just history. It was revealed last week that a black man in Michigan came upon KKK materials and Confederate flags in plain view while being shown a home for sale – the home of a police officer on the force for more than 20 years who shot and killed a black man in 2009 without consequence. It’s a widespread pattern. As early as 2006, the FBI flagged it. Another FBI report in 2015, not covered nearly enough, indicated that “domestic terrorism investigations focused on militia extremists, white supremacist extremists, and sovereign citizen extremists often have identified active links to law enforcement officers”. (And that’s the FBI, which has its own history of white supremacy affinity groups.) White nationalists connect through online networks and offline groups, and openly share tactics for infiltrating and influencing police departments, border patrol, the FBI and the military.
By JAY REEVES and JULIE CARR SMYTH - Associated Press

BIRMINGHAM, ALA. — Warlike imagery has begun spreading in Republican circles after the attack on the U.S. Capitol by a mob of President Donald Trump’s supporters, with some elected officials and party leaders rejecting pleas to tone down rhetoric calling for a second civil war. In northwestern Wisconsin, the chairman of the St. Croix County Republican Party was forced to resign Friday after refusing for a week after the siege to remove an online post urging followers to “prepare for war.” The incoming chairwoman of the Michigan GOP and her husband, a state lawmaker, have joined a conservative social media site created after the Capitol riot where the possibility of civil war is a topic. Phil Reynolds, a member of the GOP central committee in California’s Santa Clara County, appeared to urge on insurrectionists on social media during the Jan. 6 attack, declaring on Facebook: “The war has begun. Citizens take arms! Drumroll please….. Civil War or No Civil War?” more...
Almost 30 police officers attended the Capitol rally. It should come as no surprise.
By Anna North

As investigations of last week’s riot at the US Capitol continue, one thing has become abundantly clear: The people involved were not just “fringe” elements, disconnected from the mainstream of society. Prominent among the rioters was a group with a lot of institutional and social power — police officers and other law enforcement officials. Indeed, nearly 30 sworn officers have been identified so far as attendees to the rally leading to Wednesday’s riot, according to NPR. That includes Virginia police officer Thomas “T.J.” Robertson, who was arrested this week in connection with the insurrection. “CNN and the Left are just mad because we actually attacked the government who is the problem and not some random small business,” Robertson reportedly wrote on Facebook after storming the Capitol. Those arrested also include his colleague Jacob Fracker, a Virginia police officer as well as a corporal in the state’s National Guard. “Lol to anyone who’s possibly concerned about the picture of me going around,” Fracker apparently wrote on Facebook. “Not like I did anything illegal.” more...
By Madeline Holcombe and Sonia Moghe, CNN

(CNN) A high-ranking official with the New York Police Department has been suspended without pay and is now the subject of an internal disciplinary process after a string of racist, anti-Semitic and homophobic posts, the NYPD confirmed. Late last year, an investigation by the City Council connected Deputy Inspector James Francis Kobel to a user under the name "Clouseau." Under that identity, he routinely posted offensive messages on a public law enforcement message board attacking Black people, Muslims, the Hasidic Jewish community and others with extremely derogatory language, according to a draft report from the New York City Council Oversight and Investigations Division. more...
Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, says that one of the officers was seen taking a selfie with members of the mob and that another was directing people while wearing a MAGA hat.
By Tim Stelloh, Alex Moe and Haley Talbot

"Several" U.S. Capitol Police officers were suspended and at least 10 more are under investigation over the deadly pro-Trump insurrection last week, officials said Monday. Acting U.S. Capitol Police Chief Yogananda Pittman said the suspensions occurred amid an internal probe. Video and other evidence appears to show that some officers and officials violated department policies, Pittman said. Pittman did not provide additional about the inquiry or specify how many people had been suspended. Earlier Monday, Rep. Tim Ryan, D-Ohio, who chairs one of the committees that oversees the Capitol Police, told reporters that one of the suspended officers appeared to have taken a selfie with members of the mob. Another officer was suspended after he was seen wearing a Make American Great Again hat and directing people inside the building, Ryan said. more...
By Peter Nickeas, Annie Grayer and Ryan Nobles, CNN

(CNN) Two US Capitol Police officers were suspended and up to 15 more are under investigation for their behavior during last week's assault on the Capitol, and federal agents will look at whether current and former law enforcement officers played a role in the riot. One of the Capitol police officers took a selfie with someone who was part of the mob that overtook the Capitol and the other wore a "Make America Great Again" hat and started directing people around the building, according to Rep. Tim Ryan, an Ohio Democrat. He didn't disclose how many other officers were under investigation but confirmed it was between 10 and 15, and didn't say what they were being scrutinized for except that it was their behavior during the riot.
By Rocco Parascandola New York Daily News

An off-duty NYPD cop has been accused of being among the rioters who stormed the U.S. Capitol, Police Commissioner Dermot Shea said Monday. The officer is being investigated by the NYPD’s Internal Affairs Bureau but has not been charged. “There is one investigation that is active on one member,” Shea told NY1. “There is no name yet released because we don’t know if it’s true or not. But I can tell you anyone committing crimes certainly would have a very short shelf life with the NYPD.” It wasn’t immediately clear what exactly the officer has been accused of doing on Wednesday or how the NYPD came to learn about his role. more...
CBS Philly

The department is only saying that they are investigating whether or not the female detective violated department policy. video...
By Kim Bellware

Police officers and at least one police chief from departments across the United States are facing termination, suspension or other discipline for their proximity to or alleged involvement in a chaotic gathering in Washington on Wednesday that ended in a riot at the U.S. Capitol and left five people dead. Departments in California, Washington state, and Texas are among those that have announced investigations into their officers based on tips, social media posts and other evidence, though more officers could be identified as evidence emerges in the coming days.
By Elise Takahama and Lewis Kamb - Seattle Times staff reporters

At least two Seattle police officers who were in Washington, D.C., on Wednesday during the riot at the U.S. Capitol have been placed on administrative leave, according to a Friday night statement from interim Police Chief Adrian Diaz. “The Department fully supports all lawful expressions of First Amendment freedom of speech, but the violent mob and events that unfolded at the U.S. Capitol were unlawful and resulted in the death of another police officer,” Diaz said in the statement. “… If any SPD officers were directly involved in the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol, I will immediately terminate them.”
by Solomon Jones

I felt a growing sadness as I listened to a recording of Donald Trump begging, bullying, cajoling and threatening Georgia Secretary of State Brad Raffensperger in an attempt to make him do something he can’t—overturn Trump’s loss in the presidential race, via the state now poised to send a historic rebuke to the GOP’s exclusionary politics. Others, including former U.S. Attorney Preet Bharara and former federal prosecutor Elie Honig, have said the president’s roughly hourlong call to Raffensperger, published by the Washington Post, could expose the president to state and federal charges of election fraud. In listening to what Trump said, I thought Bharara and others were right. “But they are shredding ballots, in my opinion, based on what I’ve heard,” Trump told Raffensperger as lawyers and staffers listened in. “And they are removing machinery, and they’re moving it as fast as they can, both of which are criminal finds. And you can’t let it happen, and you are letting it happen. You know, I mean, I’m notifying you that you’re letting it happen. So look. All I want to do is this. I just want to find 11,780 votes, which is one more than we have because we won the state.” more...
Will Carless - USA TODAY

As protests over police brutality and racial justice broke out this summer, often resulting in harsh responses from law enforcement, police officers across the country have been accused of favoring a violent extremist group that took to the streets to oppose those demonstrators. The latest example of a cozy relationship between law enforcement and the far-right Proud Boys happened in the nation's capital last week when the Metropolitan Police responded to a stabbing involving members of the Proud Boys and an associate. Provocateur Bevelyn Beatty and the chairman of the Proud Boys, who was with her, told police they were both stabbed by people associated with Black Lives Matter in a street fight early the morning after the presidential election. The Metropolitan Police Department repeated their claim to media outlets, leading to headlines around the country claiming Black Lives Matter had attacked the Proud Boys. There's no evidence Black Lives Matter had anything to do with the incident. Police officials have since walked back their initial statements, saying it's unclear whether anyone involved was affiliated with political groups.

The department's willingness to echo the accusations of the Proud Boys is another example of law enforcement's deference to the group, said Michael German, a former FBI special agent who is now a fellow with the Brennan Center for Justice’s Liberty and National Security Program. “This group has been involved in all kinds of violent activities, and it seems that law enforcement’s response to them has been reluctant,” German said. “That sends a message to far-right groups that their violence is sanctioned by the police.” Meanwhile, law enforcement has clamped down on protests organized by Black Lives Matter and similar groups, he said.

Extremist group doesn't often draw strong police response.
The Proud Boys, which champions a mishmash of prejudicial ideas tied to its slogan of "Western chauvinism," has gotten more attention since it was mentioned in a presidential debate in September. Many Proud Boys espouse white supremacist and white nationalist views, though the group has some nonwhite members. Members – all male – are proud of their tough-guy image. Events promoted by the Proud Boys often end in brawls, and they've been seen attacking people. more...
The recruit, Joseph Zacharek, is believed to have participated in a forum called “Iron March” four years ago, a police official said.
By Tim Stelloh

A police recruit in Lafayette, Indiana, was fired after an anti-fascist flagged his apparent ties to a neo-Nazi internet forum, authorities said Saturday. The recruit, Joseph Zacharek, is believed to have participated in a forum called “Iron March” four years ago, Lafayette Police Chief Patrick Flannelly said in a statement. The department was alerted to Zacharek’s posts on Friday, when a self-described anti-fascist tagged its Twitter account with a link to messages from the forum that were posted on a site called “ironmarch exposed.” The department opened an investigation and determined that the messages were accurate and credible, the statement said. more...
By Simon Clark

The United States is living through a moment of profound and positive change in attitudes toward race, with a large majority of citizens1 coming to grips with the deeply embedded historical legacy of racist structures and ideas. The recent protests and public reaction to George Floyd’s murder are a testament to many individuals’ deep commitment to renewing the founding ideals of the republic. But there is another, more dangerous, side to this debate—one that seeks to rehabilitate toxic political notions of racial superiority, stokes fear of immigrants and minorities to inflame grievances for political ends, and attempts to build a notion of an embattled white majority which has to defend its power by any means necessary. These notions, once the preserve of fringe white nationalist groups, have increasingly infiltrated the mainstream of American political and cultural discussion, with poisonous results. For a starting point, one must look no further than President Donald Trump’s senior adviser for policy and chief speechwriter, Stephen Miller.
Associated Press

The U.S. Marine Corps confirmed Saturday that two men charged in plots against Michigan's government spent time in the military. Officials are "aware of the circumstances surrounding" Daniel Harris and Joseph Morrison and will assist in any way in the investigation, the Marine Corps said in an emailed statement. Harris is one of six men charged federally with conspiring to kidnap Democratic Gov. Gretchen Whitmer before the Nov. 3 elections. Morrison, 26, is one of seven men charged under the state's anti-terrorism law for allegedly seeking to storm the Michigan Capitol and ignite a "civil war." Authorities say he was a founding member of the "anti-government, anti-law enforcement" Wolverine Watchmen. more...
An Atlantic investigation reveals who they are and what they might do on Election Day.
Story by Mike Giglio

Stewart Rhodes was living his vision of the future. On television, American cities were burning, while on the internet, rumors warned that antifa bands were coming to terrorize the suburbs. Rhodes was driving around South Texas, getting ready for them. He answered his phone. “Let’s not fuck around,” he said. “We’ve descended into civil war.” It was a Friday evening in June. Rhodes, 55, is a stocky man with a gray buzz cut, a wardrobe of tactical-casual attire, and a black eye patch. With him in his pickup were a pistol and a dusty black hat with the gold logo of the Oath Keepers, a militant group that has drawn in thousands of people from the military and law-enforcement communities. Rhodes had been talking about civil war since he founded the Oath Keepers, in 2009. But now more people were listening. And whereas Rhodes had once cast himself as a revolutionary in waiting, he now saw his role as defending the president. He had put out a call for his followers to protect the country against what he was calling an “insurrection.” The unrest, he told me, was the latest attempt to undermine Donald Trump. more...
By Linette Lopez

When President Donald Trump tells us he does not want to change the names of US military bases named after Confederate military leaders, or that he wants Confederate monuments left alone, he's telling you who owns this country — white Americans. And when he does so while the country is still reeling from his attempt to unleash the US military on anti-racist protesters, he's forcing us to reckon with the inextricable link between American racism and American fascism. No, the Civil War was not fought over tariffs, and it isn't correct to say it started over states rights either. The Confederates were fascists who used racism as the ideology that organized their authoritarian society. Robert E. Lee and Jefferson Davis and the entire Confederacy were fighting to preserve a social structure that left Black Americans out of citizenry and firmly established white property holding men on top. They believed the country belonged to these white, landowning men, and that they were the only ones entitled to govern or profit from it. They also believed that those men should preserve it with violence if necessary. To build this slavocracy they became traitors to our homeland. As one southern planter so perversely put it on the eve of secession, "give us slavery or give us death." In 1857 the Athens Southern Watchmen, a prominent pro-secession political journal, laid it out more eloquently. It repudiated the egalitarianism of Thomas Jefferson saying that he had lead our country astray with his talk of "vulgar democracy." It mused that it was absurd to think the "pauper and the landholder are alike competent to manage the affairs of a country." This is why, in the election of 1860, non-property holding men in South Carolina were disenfranchised, and only the planter aristocrats in the Electoral College cast their votes.
By Jose Martinez

Tulsa Police Department major Travis Yates claims he was misquoted during a recent podcast appearance where he stated that officers are "shooting African-Americans about 24 percent less than we probably ought to be, based on the crimes being committed." The most baffling part is Yates' misquote defense isn't even in regards to that callous comment you just read above. In a statement obtained by KTUL, Yates claims that prior to that disturbing line, he mentioned some research from Roland Fryer, Heather MacDonald, and the National Academy of Sciences in an effort to somehow support his argument, but his remarks were diminished in the transcript by Public Radio Tulsa to "All of their research says." You're probably going to return to that Idris clip in a little bit. Here's what he said leading up to that line. "You get this meme of, 'Blacks are shot two times, two and a half times more,' and everybody just goes, 'Oh, yeah,'" Yates said. "They're not making sense here. You have to come into contact with law enforcement for that to occur. "If a certain group is committing more crimes, more violent crimes, and law enforcement's having to come into more contact with them, that number is going to be higher," Yates continued. "Who in the world in their right mind would think that our shootings should be right along the U.S. Census lines? That's insanity. All of the research says we're shooting African-Americans about 24% less than we probably ought to be, based on the crimes being committed."
The identity of the guardsman has not been released.
By ASSOCIATED PRESS

An Ohio National Guardsman was removed from policing protests in Washington D.C. after the FBI found he expressed white supremacist ideology online, Gov. Mike DeWine announced in a briefing Friday. The state had sent 100 National Guard soldiers to the nation’s capital Tuesday at the request of Secretary of Defense Mark Esper to assist in quelling violence over the death of George Floyd in police custody in Minneapolis. “While I fully support everyone’s right to free speech, Guardsmen and women are sworn to protect all of us, regardless of race, ethnic background, or religion,” DeWine said.
It’s more than “a few bad apples”
by Danielle Schulkin

On Sunday morning, CNN’s Jake Tapper asked President Trump’s National Security Advisor, Robert O’Brien, whether he thinks “systemic racism” is a problem in law enforcement agencies in the United States. O’Brien responded: “I don’t think there is systemic racism. I think 99.9 percent of our law enforcement officers are great Americans,” said O’Brien. “But … there’s a few bad apples.” There are two flaws in O’Brien’s response. First, O’Brien ignores the well-documented support by law enforcement officers of alt-right extremist ideology throughout the country. Second, O’Brien misunderstands the nature of systemic racism—a term that means that institutions we have in place produce racially disparate effects on minority populations—in his discussion of individual officers. An FBI intelligence assessment—titled “White Supremacist Infiltration of Law Enforcement” and published in 2006 during the administration of President George W. Bush—raised alarm over white supremacist groups’ interest in “infiltrating law enforcement communities or recruiting law enforcement personnel.” The report, based on FBI investigations and open sources, warned, for example, that skinhead groups were actively encouraging their members to become “ghost skins” within law enforcement agencies, a term the report said white supremacists use to describe members who “avoid overt displays of their beliefs to blend into society and covertly advance white supremacist causes.” In 2015, a classified FBI Counterterrorism Policy Guide, obtained by The Intercept, stated that “domestic terrorism investigations focused on militia extremists, white supremacist extremists, and sovereign citizen extremists often have identified active links to law enforcement officers.”
For decades, anti-government and white supremacist groups have been attempting to recruit police officers – and the authorities themselves aren’t even certain about the scale of the problem.
By Maddy Crowell and Sylvia Varnham O’Regan

Ever since he was a teenager, Joshua Doggrell has believed that the former slave-holding states of the American south should secede from the United States. When he was a freshman in college at the University of Alabama in 1995, Doggrell discovered a group whose worldview chimed with his – the League of the South. The League believes that white southern culture is in danger of extinction from forces such as religious pluralism, homosexuality and interracial coupling. Doggrell wanted to protect that culture. In 2006, when he was 29 years old, he applied to be a police officer in Anniston, Alabama, a sparsely populated city at the foothills of the Appalachian mountains, where more than half of the residents are people of colour. On his police application, Doggrell wrote that he was a member of the League. Shortly after, he was hired.
Chief Michel Moore said the ad placement was being investigated.
By Dennis Romero

The Los Angeles Police Department was trying to figure out Saturday how one of its ads for new recruits ended up on right-wing news site Breitbart. The department, in which Latinos comprise the largest ethnic group of officers, was quick to denounce the placement on a platform that has often highlighted the misdeeds and crimes of people living in the U.S. without proper documentation and that critics have accused of posting racist content. LAPD Chief Michel Moore tweeted Saturday that his department would team up with the city's Personnel Department to determine how the ad, featuring a photo of an officer and the words, "Choose Your Future," ended up on the website once run by Stephen Bannon, a former adviser to President Donald Trump. more...
By Jackson Landers

A recently leaked trove of internal communications among white supremacists show that many believed members of the police and military are on their side. The Southern Poverty Law Center in 2008 began issuing reports about members of white supremacist groups joining the military in large numbers. The FBI in 2006 issued a heavily redacted report warning of systematic infiltration of law enforcement organizations by white supremacists. More than a decade on, what results have those infiltration efforts gleaned and how do neo-Nazi groups talk about their relations with the military and police officers? A recently leaked trove of internal communications provides a window into the thinking of members of the modern “alt-right” white supremacist movement. The educational nonprofit media organization Unicorn Riot obtained access to tens of thousands of messages passed among hundreds of white supremacists on chat servers used to plan the August 12 Unite the Right rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, where a white supremacist allegedly killed a counter protester, Heather Heyer.
Electoral Politics and the KKK in WA
by Trevor Griffey

The Ku Klux Klan was controversial in the 1920s not only because of its intolerance and promotion of vigilante violence, but also because of its entry into American politics. During the first half of the 1920s, the Klan, which had previously been associated with the South, came to thoroughly dominate electoral politics in Indiana, supposedly helped elect eleven Governors (including Oregon’s Walter Pierce), and briefly controlled State Legislatures in the Western States of Oklahoma, Texas, Colorado, and Oregon. At the national level, the Klan is alleged to have elected dozens of Senators and Congressmen in the 1920s. Though at the local level Klan politicians were both Republicans and Democrats, nationally it was the Democratic Party that was most associated with the Klan because of intense infighting at its 1924 Presidential nominating convention. Klan allies fought tooth-and-nail to oppose the nomination of New York Governor Al Smith because he was Catholic, and conflict between delegates went from rhetoric to fistfights. The negative publicity from this infighting supposedly helped Republican Calvin Coolidge win the Presidency that year by a landslide. In this context, the inroads made into electoral politics by Washington State’s Ku Klux Klan seem relatively mild. Voting patterns on the Klan’s anti-Catholic school bill in 1924 suggest that while the Klan had many members in big cities, its main voting power (which was not very large) resided in small farming towns. Yet on the other hand, at the Democratic Party Convention earlier that year, delegates from Washington state, along with those from Oregon and Idaho, were unanimous in opposing a plank to the Party platform which would have repudiated violence associated with the KKK.
By MIKE SCHNEIDER - Associated Press

FRUITLAND PARK, Florida (AP) _ Residents of this small town have been stunned by an investigative report linking two city police officers with the Ku Klux Klan, the secret hate society that once was violently active in the area. The violence against African-Americans that permeated the area was more than 60 years ago, when the place was more rural and the main industry was citrus. These days, the community of less than 5,000 residents northwest of Orlando has been infused by the thousands of wealthier, more cosmopolitan retirees in the area. Those who live in the bedroom community, which is less than 10 percent black, have reacted not only with shock, but disgust that officers could be involved with the Klan, the mayor said. “I’m shocked, very shocked,” said Chery Mion, who works in a Fruitland Park gift shop next door to the mayor’s office. “I didn’t think that organization was still around. Yes, in the 1950s. But this 2014, and it’s rather disconcerting to know.” Mayor Chris Bell says he heard stories about a Klan rally that took place two years before he arrived in the 1970s, but he has never seen anything firsthand. As recently as the 1960s, many in law enforcement in the South were members but “it’s exceedingly unusual these days to find a police officer who is secretly a Klansman,” said Mark Potok, a senior fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups.
WFMY News 2

A routine Tuesday night City Council meeting turned tense when the Greensboro Police Department was questioned and repeatedly called out. Greensboro resident and antiracist activist Mitchell Fryer took to the podium and referenced an article by journalist Nate Thayer. The article talks about the Greensboro Police Departments alleged working relationship with Christopher Barker, a known Ku Klux Klan leader in North Carolina. Barker is the Imperial Wizard of the Loyal White Knights. "Over 20 officers both Greensboro and part of a federal task force system and they do a litany of things.. DEA, ATF, FBI," Chief Scott said. "That is a partnership we experience and we get benefit from here in city, it's longstanding they do a multitude of things that I cant discuss, but everything they're doing is in the bounds of the law."
By Matthew Hall

New York: Law enforcement, the military, and politics in the United States have been infiltrated by white supremacists, who use it to recruit others and gain paramilitary training. The claim, by a former neo-Nazi skinhead who now works as an anti-racist activist, is supported by internal reports on local policing by the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the top domestic law enforcement agency in the US. Christian Picciolini, a 44-year-old, award-winning activist from Chicago who now works to deradicalise racist extremists, says members of his former neo-Nazi gang pursued careers with police departments, joined the military, or ran for political office. “A lot of these old skinheads and [Ku Klux] Klansmen have gone into the mainstream,” Picciolini told Fairfax Media. “Many people from my crew went on to be Chicago police officers, they went on to be prison guards,and they certainly took their ideology with them. A lot of people that I know ended up enlisting in the military to recruit [racists] and to get weapons and combat training.” Picciolini says he “frequently” gets requests for help from people in the military - or parents or friends - concerned by rhetoric within the ranks. “They are denying the Holocaust, their views are in line with white supremacists and white nationalists, and they are coming back from serving in the military angry,” he says.
By Jorge Rivas

Larrissa Moore skipped the typical law school summer vacation at a beach. Instead, she spent her summer break holed up inside a Presbyterian church in Georgia, reviewing unsolved murder cases from the civil-rights era.The Mississippi College School of Law student says she wants to be a federal judge, but until that day comes she’s figuring out how to serve justice any way she can. Moore, 24, spent 10 weeks reviewing old police records looking for clues to help her close unresolved civil-rights era killings, including suspicious cases that may have involved officers pulling the trigger. But the enthusiasm Moore had when she arrived to her internship quickly turned to anger. Moore said she quickly realized many of the officer shootings she was looking at from the 1950s and 1960s sounded a lot like the cases she was seeing in the news in 2015.
This is a partial list of a few notable figures in U.S. national politics who were members of the Ku Klux Klan before taking office. Membership was secret. Sometimes political opponents might allege that a person was a member, or was supported at the polls by Klan members.
Gary Thomas Rowe was implicated in some of the civil rights era’s worst crimes
By Laura Smith

Halfway between Selma and Montgomery, on a dark stretch of Alabama highway, a white woman was driving a sedan. In the seat beside her was Leroy Morton, a black man. It was 1965. Viola Gregg Liuzzo, a 39-year-old medical student and mother of five from Detroit, was transporting civil rights activists to and from the Freedom March. When she heard about the march she told her husband, “There are just too many people who stand around talking.” She got in her car and drove to Alabama. Before returning home, she called her husband and told him, “I’m very happy, don’t worry.” She didn’t realize that in Selma, she and Morton had been spotted by Ku Klux Klan members. They were now following her on the highway. They rolled down their windows, sped up beside Liuzzo’s car, pointed their rifles, and fired. Liuzzo was shot in the head. Morton lived, but Liuzzo would be the only white woman to die in the civil rights movement. It was this event — not the numerous murders of black people — that would cause President Johnson to urge the KKK to “return to decent society” in a televised news conference. He went on to say that since the FBI had located the murderers, “The whole nation can take heart from the fact that there are those in the south who believe in justice in racial matters and who are determined not to stand for acts of violence and terror.”
By Richard Stockton

These famous KKK members reached the highest ranks of power in the U.S. government and shaped our history. Internet message boards have been hot this month with Anonymous’ alleged hacking of the Ku Klux Klan’s Twitter account. As befits an Internet phenomenon, much of what has been published so far is unsubstantiated, but several prominent public figures have been accused of secret membership in the KKK, including several pro-civil rights mayors and Representative John Cornyn (R-TX), the current House Whip. Needless to say, everybody who has commented on the outing so far has denied being affiliated with the KKK, which you’d expect from politicians with something to lose. In the context of American politics, however, the fact that membership in the KKK is now considered a career-ending liability is a relatively new phenomenon. Just a few generations ago, membership in the 5 million-strong KKK brought aspiring politicians money, legitimacy, and easy electoral victories. It’s hardly surprising, therefore, that so many American public figures have been members of the secret empire of the Klan:
By Landon Harrar

GAINESVILLE, Fla. (WCJB)-- Ocala's mayor Kent Guinn is again facing an accusation of racism and being part of the Ku Klux Klan. The accusation was made after he signed a proclamation making April 26th, 2019 as confederate memorial day in Ocala. Wednesday morning Mayor Guinn told TV20 he wasn't expecting this controversial backlash but after multiple news organizations reached out to him for comment including TV20 he decided it was best to get everyone in one place to ask questions and also giving him the chance defend himself. Tuesday night after Mayor Guinn signed the proclamation brought to him by representatives of the United Daughters of the Confederacy, City Council President Mary Sue Rich was unhappy and let it be known. She said she's starting to believe what others have said about Mayor Guinns' ties to being a KKK member. Mayor Guinn in his press conference refuted those claims saying, " the conversation the other night about me being in the KKK it was a subject that came up in 2015. I stood right here and said the following and I'll say it right now. I am not, I repeat not in the KKK. I never have been, I never will be and I despise and I hate everything that organization stands for. I don't know how I can make that any more crystal clear than that."
By karma allen

A Michigan police department has opened an investigation of one of its officers after a potential homebuyer reported seeing items associated with white supremacy at the officer's home. Police in Muskegon, Michigan, launched an internal investigation of officer Charles Anderson last week after the would-be homebuyer, who is black, said he discovered a Confederate flag display and a framed Ku Klux Klan application during a tour of the home.

This past weekend in Chapel Hill, North Carolina, dozens of police assaulted and arrested community members holding an anti-racist canned food drive and potluck on the campus of the University of North Carolina. The community potluck was a response to the wave of right-wing backlash since a racist Jim Crow-era confederate statue on the campus was finally toppled three weeks ago. In response, white supremacists have gathered at the pedestal of the former “Silent Sam” statue with heavy police protection – while police have pepper-sprayed, beaten and arrested UNC students and community who came out to oppose them. Police providing special protection to Nazis, the KKK, and other right-wing groups is far from a new trend. But the pattern feels especially stark this summer given the way police have responded to a series of rallies meant to continue the racist terror spree of Charlottesville. At a Portland alt-right rally in August, police attacked anti-fascist protesters with flash grenades, giving one protestor third-degree chemical burns and nearly killing another. At the main Unite the Right 2 rally in Washington, D.C., police provided an escort and private train to a group that included Charlottesville architect and “white civil rights activist” Jason Kessler. I saw this firsthand at a rally hosted by Nazi front group Resist Marxism in Boston last month. Police were laughing and palling around with Nazis while they shoved and harassed anti-fascist protesters. Boston police provided a barricade of protection and private escort to the train station for the white supremacists once it became clear that the hundreds of us counterprotesting were not going away.
A 2006 intelligence assessment reveals that officials had concerns about the infiltration of police departments for years but failed to warn the public.
Alice Speri

The FBI has long been concerned about the infiltration of law enforcement by white supremacist groups and its impact on police abuse and tolerance of racism, the unredacted version of a previously circulated document reveals. The FBI threat assessment report was released by Rep. Jamie Raskin, chair of the House Committee on Oversight and Reform’s Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Subcommittee, ahead of a hearing about the white supremacist infiltration of local police departments scheduled for Tuesday. A heavily redacted version of the 2006 document had previously been published, one of a handful of documents revealing federal officials’ growing concern with white supremacists’ “historical” interest in “infiltrating law enforcement communities or recruiting law enforcement personnel.” A different internal document obtained by The Intercept in 2017 had also noted that “domestic terrorism investigations focused on militia extremists, white supremacist extremists, and sovereign citizen extremists often have identified active links to law enforcement officers.”
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