FBI’s warning of white supremacists infiltrating law enforcement nearly forgotten

[natina]

FBI’s warning of white supremacists infiltrating law enforcement nearly forgotten

Because of intensifying civil strife over the recent killings of unarmed black men and boys, many Americans are wondering, “What’s wrong with our police?” Remarkably, one of the most compelling but unexplored explanations may rest with a FBI warning of October 2006, which reported that “White supremacist infiltration of law enforcement” represented a significant national threat.Several key events preceded the report. A federal court found that members of a Los Angeles sheriffs department formed a Neo Nazi gang and habitually terrorized the black community. Later, the Chicago police department fired Jon Burge, a detective with reputed ties to the Ku Klux Klan, after discovering he tortured over 100 black male suspects. Thereafter, the Mayor of Cleveland discovered that many of the city police locker rooms were infested with “White Power” graffiti. Years later, a Texas sheriff department discovered that two of its deputies were recruiters for the Klan.
In near prophetic fashion, after the FBI’s warning, white supremacy extremism in the U.S. increased, exponentially. From 2008 to 2014, the number of white supremacist groups, reportedly, grew from 149 to nearly a thousand, with no apparent abatement in their infiltration of law enforcement.
This year, alone, at least seven San Francisco law enforcement officers were suspended after an investigation revealed they exchanged numerous “White Power” communications laden with remarks about “lynching African-Americans and burning crosses.” Three reputed Klan members that served as correction officers were arrested for conspiring to murder a black inmate. At least four Fort Lauderdale police officers were fired after an investigation found that the officers fantasized about killing black suspects.
The United States doesn’t publicly track white supremacists, so the full range of their objectives remains murky. Although black and Jewish-Americans are believed to be the foremost targets of white supremacists, recent attacks in Nevada, Wisconsin, Arizona, Kansas and North Carolina, demonstrate that other non-whites, and religious and social minorities, are also vulnerable. Perhaps more alarmingly, in the last several years alone, white supremacists have reportedly murdered law enforcement officers in Arkansas, Nevada and Wisconsin.
In fact, the FBI reports that of the 511 law enforcement officers killed during felony incidents from 2004 to 2013, white citizens killed the majority of them. Of the citizens stopped by law enforcement officers in New York City and Chicago, white citizens were more likely to be found with guns and drugs. Given the white supremacist penchant for violence, guns and drug trafficking, the findings may be an indication that their network is just as destructive and far-reaching as that of foreign terrorist groups.
The unfortunate consequence of today’s threat is that a law enforcement officer may be good or bad, a villain or hero; one exceptionally prone to exhibit malicious forms of racial hatred, or distinctively suited to protect the racially oppressed. But the paradox doesn’t end there.
The white supremacist threat brings to light a dark feature of the American experience that some believed extinct. It rouses ingrained notions of distrusts between police and communities of color while bringing to bear the vital interest citizens of good will share in the complete abolishment of race as a judgmental factor.
As the nation struggles to resolve the perplexities of police brutality, the white supremacist threat should inform all Americans that today’s civil discord is not borne out of a robust animosity towards law enforcement, most of whom are professional. Rather, it’s more representative of a centuries-old ideological clash, which has ignited in citizens of good will a desire to affirm notions of racial equality so that the moral ethos of American culture is a reality for all.
Samuel V. Jones is a former military police captain and currently a professor of law focusing on criminal law at The John Marshall Law School.
http://thegrio.com/2015/05/12/fbi-wh...w-enforcement/

[Ben in LA]

This isn't anything new.

[yodajazz]

I had read another article about this same topic, and I think it has some possible validity. Being a policeman is a perfect cover. They don't even have to change their look. Th Supreme Court, basically supported the policeman's right to freely choose who is a suspect, even if groups have significant statistics of selective enforcement. Just seems like the number of police led deaths have increased in recent times. Even thought my cousin died in police custody in the eighties. All they have to do is say the person was resisting arrest. Or come up with a knife or unregistered gun, and say the person pulled it out. Heres an example: A police shoots a teen running away from him, who had stolen a gun. The policeman claimed that the young man shot at him, over his should as he was running away from him. I saw part of a video of them running and they seemed to be running pretty fast. How can a person shoot over his shoulder, while running full speed? I see my city is mentioned in this article. The feds have stepped in, published a report, and are seeking reforms. But the day the report was released, was the same day as the memorial service for 12 year old Tamir Rice. By the way, his body has still not been given back to the family after 7 months.

In recent Cleveland news the policeman, was acquitted in the deaths of the two people shot 137 times. the judge said that you couldn't prove his shots were the ones that killed them, even though he stood on the hood of their vehicle and emptied his pistol at point blank range, and then reloaded. But he was arrested recently for an altercation with his twin brother. I supposed he cannot be accused of racism in this case.

[natina]

the police department has a HISTORY OF HAVING WHITE supremacists IN THERE RANKS.

what do you mean its plausible. its the history of the police department.

[buttslinger]

I remember ONMYKNEES used to stir it up on Sunday mornings, by pasting FOX news articles here.
I enjoy the BLACK POWER posts here, and I can certainly understand why black folks have a chip on their shoulder. My mama grew up in the deep south, my granny remembered lynchings, and my family has old wills with young black boys named as property.
I'm split on the Confederate flag, on the one hand I can see that it is like the Nazi flag, but on the other hand I don't want to trade in my white pride for black pride, since we obviously can't mix the two.
I honestly don't believe a white person can understand a black person.
You can explain race relations in a scholarly fashion, but to me it's what goes on in the street, face to face that counts. Real simple stuff. You could clean out half the jail population right now if the inmates would accept shit jobs like McDonalds or janitorial work. The Mexicans and damn furiners have put even more of a strain on a young undereducated brotha looking for the American Dream.
I can tell everybody right now that one of the reasons gun sales are so out of control is WHITE PEOPLE fear BLACK PEOPLE.
There are lots of black cops, good cops. Every Police Detective in the USA knew OJ did it. It wasn't the cops who got it wrong, actually most cops are much more homophobic than racist. When black and white cops are being pummeled by bricks and bottles, they don't see it as years of oppression coming home to roost. They see bricks coming down on their heads.
I certainly agree the USA has not been kind to the black man. But I'm still waiting for a solution a little more solid than "stop being racist"
And I don't think Rosa Parks should be on the $10 bill. I think Candy Samples should be on the tenner and I think it should be raised so blind people could use it.
I've said before most people learn their American History in the sixth grade, the PG-13 version, if the real version of America were ever written it would be written in blood. booze. genocide. Atomic Bomb. civil war. oppression. winners and losers. As long as the 70% white view of things differs with the 13% black view of things, in any court in the land, majority rules.

Black people seem to focus on Freddie Gray in Baltimore, OK, Freddie ate lead paint as a baby because his parents lived in a shitty rowhouse. While white kids in the suburbs were learning things in school and doing their homework Freddie has ADD and learned nothing. The Baltimore School system is fucked for life.
Who do you blame it on? Who you blame it on tells more about you than the problem.

The KKK and white supremacist groups are inbred morons, nobody is going to give them a gun. The problem is that millions of middle class white people are all agreed when it comes to putting a black thug in jail or steering clear of the ghetto at 3AM. To some extent racism, or whatever you want to call it, is justified. In a COMPETITIVE Society.

I'm not really speaking from my heart, my heart doesn't understand racism, I'm just stirring the pot. If I really wanted to do something for the world I'd feed the starving children before I sent Freddie Gray's family a check. Most jokes are easy to understand, the truth is too damn hard. So I laugh.

[yodajazz]

Thank you for your contributions to the discussion. I want to give, another side, to your statement, that less blacks would be in prison if they accepted jobs at fast food places, etc. I say that the jobs just aren't there. The Dept of Labor stats put the unemployment rate of Black youth 16-19 at 30.7% vs 17% for White youth in the same age category. And these stats are only for those seeking jobs. I have heard of studies with much higher stats, especially when one looks at specific communities, such as large urban communities. One major reason, that Black Americans are the most incarcerated people of the planet, is selective enforcement. I just read a book by Michelle Alexander, called "The New Jim Crow". Her basic argument is that Whites and Blacks are equally likely to use illegal drugs. However, Blacks are several times more likely to to be arrested and convicted of drug offenses. In looking up stuff for this reply, I saw something that said that Blacks are 4 times more likely to be searched. Think of it as just math. If it is just as likely that all people might have illegal drugs on their person, then Blacks are four times more like to suffer legal consequences. Then when you factor in how "The War on Drugs" was waged, you find significant differences. If you look at it, being a policeman is the perfect place for being a White supremacist. The Supreme Court has upheld the right of police to choose stop a question anyone they feel like. Guess who gets stopped at significantly higher rates?

[buttslinger]

For America to be a perfect utopian society, you would need the top 1,000 utopian minds,......call them America, and then just kind of overlook the rest who are in this only for themselves.

The question isn't whether black people deserve to be Americans, or if they are somehow not as good as whitey, the question is, if your family is starting up a gas station business, how much do you want to pay your employees? The worth of a human being is bookworthy material, hundreds of pages....but the hourly pay of a gas station employee comes down to not only one number, but one number point tenths and one hundredths.

Fair day's work for a fair day's pay.
I'm not sure if it would be better if the black police pulled over the cars with confederate flag bumper stickers, and put all of them in jail, or if we just closed the jails entirely and fired the police.

Identifying the problem is great, but I think the problem now is that the European sets of values are being tangled with African and Mexican values. Values over centuries old. Us and Them. In the American Melting Pot.

[trish]

It'd be nice if you made a ranked list of European values, a ranked list of African values and a ranked list of Mexican values so we can compare. Maybe you imagine it's goes something like this:

European: Jesus, family, property, community etc.
African: Jesus or Mohammad, family, community, property etc.
Mexican: Jesus, Mary, family, community, property etc.

[buttslinger]

I certainly agree that for your average soul brother or sister, America has got to be the great White Devil, only the American Indian had it worse. Liberals will talk about what a shame it is when the news cycle comes around, but then some other worse or sadder news will come up.
I think fools rush in where wise men fear to tread, and if the USA has to pour money into bottomless hell holes, I would rather have them do it here than Iraq. But even if you perfect your justice system, the ghetto is still going to be the last place you want to go. So be it. Peace out, Motherfuckers.

[yodajazz]

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2015/0...this-past-week

Six Black churches have been destroyed by fire this past week, per article.