@DROP CAP = THE PROBLEM OF ORGANIZED white supremacist activity among law enforcement and other uniformed services is widespread, and is only growing in the '90s, 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 Los Angeles Police Department for 23 years, underscore 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 supremacist 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 a independent historical researcher, not affiliated with Metzger. Whatever his affiliation, Bauman used his access to LAPD computers to run checks on Metzger, Stan Witek of the local nazi party, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Irv Rubin of the JDL, a private investigator and Peace & Freedom Party c<%4>andidate, 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 wing and left wing groups. He says that 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.<%0> <%2>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.<%0> Meanwhile over at the Sheriff's Department, Sheriff Block has been criticized for not implementing 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 there is no proven foundation to charges of organized white supremacist activity in the sheriff'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 flies 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 an 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 one deputy who went out looking for trouble on New Year's Eve three 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 coverup, 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, Maryland was forced to withhold funding from a volunteer fire department after the white chief called a Black volunteer nigger boy. In 1990, a Black cop who had helped expose Carrollton, Georgia 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 1992, Scott Lowe, the former fire chief of Grovetown, Georgia, 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 problem 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 1992 after beating a Nigerian immigrant and yelling racist epithets at him. His partner was also taken out of the field. In June 1992, Boynton Beach, Fla., police officer Dave Demarest sought reinstatement to 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, Col. in August 1992, 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 skinhead. 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. In Calif., 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, Zionist conspiracy. Another area of great concern is white supremacist involvement in the military. In August 1992, 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. In Colorado, the Army was forced to issue a ban last July on military personnel attending Klan organizing rallies at Fort Carson and threatened GI's with discharge if they got involved in Shawn Slater's KKK campaign. One particular area of bigotry among cops is anti-gay sentiments and violence. In Dallas, Tex, 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 1991 in Salt Lake City, Utah, 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. People Against Racist Terror (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 : @INFO = PART @INFO = P.O. Box 1990, @INFO = Burbank, CA 91507 @BODY TEXT R = -from Turning the Tide Vol. 5, #6 @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@ @ _Love & Rage_ is a Revolutionary Anarchist newspaper produced @ by the Love and Rage Network. The Love and Rage Network is a @ continental network of groups and individuals in Canada, Mexico, @ and the United States. Subscriptions to the newspaper cost: @ $13 for first class (fast, envelope), $9 third class (slow, no @ envelope), $13 international (outside of United States), free for @ prisoners, GI's, published bimonthly. @ Please write to us at POB 3, NY, NY 10012 @@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@@