Civil trial for KKK group begins

Civil rights lawyer tells Kentucky judge: Klan outfit called to torture Jews before killing them.

By JERUSALEM POST STAFF
ku klux klan 88 (photo credit: )
ku klux klan 88
(photo credit: )
A civil rights attorney argued Wednesday that a Kentucky-based Ku Klux Klan chapter incited violence against minorities with racist speeches, a charge denied by the group's leader in later testimony during the group's civil trial. The Southern Poverty Law Center has sued the nation's second-largest Klan outfit on behalf of a Latino teen who was severely beaten in 2006 at a county fair by two Klan members. The Klansmen were convicted and served two years in prison. The center wants its lawsuit to bankrupt the group, Imperial Klans of America. "Speakers would stand up and say, 'Kill the Jews. But, before you kill them, torture them first,"' law center co-founder Morris Dees said in his opening statement. The speeches and "hate metal" music were prevalent each spring at "Nordic Fest," an annual gathering of neo-Nazis, skinheads and Klansmen at Grand Wizard Ron Edwards' 28-acre (11-hectare) compound in southwest Kentucky, Dees said. Called to the stand later by Dees, Edwards countered that the group is not normally violent but would defend itself if provoked, like a caged animal. "We're no more dangerous than a rabbit or a dog," Edwards said. "Put your hand in their mouth and it might bite you." The lawsuit against the chapter, Edwards and Klansman Jarred Hensley seeks a "substantial judgment" for the beating of Jordan Gruver. Hensley and fellow Klansman Andrew Watkins were convicted in the beating, but Watkins and other members initially named in the civil lawsuit have reached undisclosed settlements with the law center. Edwards and Hensley told jurors in their opening statements that they were not violent and did not hurt anyone. Edwards said the people who beat the teenager were not part of his Klan and were not recruiting for him that night. "I stay above the law," said Edwards, whose arms and neck are covered in tattoos of crosses and Nazi symbols. Hensley, wearing an Imperial Klans of America golf shirt and chewing gum, also denied setting out to injure Gruver that night and said he wasn't at the fair to recruit. "We were there to have a good time," Hensley said. Dees said Edwards used the Imperial Klans of America and its affiliation with other groups as a way to make money by charging for membership and through a record label, White Rider Records, that sells music filled with hate lyrics. During "Nordic Fest," Edwards doesn't partake in the speeches and music, Dees said. Instead, he stays at the front gate, collecting cash from people. "He operates in cash," Dees said. Edwards said there was nothing sinister about his entrepreneurial attempts, including the record company. "I'm going to prove I have the right to put out CDs like blacks put out rap," Edwards said in his opening statement. Later during more than 90 minutes of questioning, Dees talked about the group's shaky finances and repeated accusations it uses violence against minorities. Edwards repeated several times that the group isn't violent. But Dees played a clip from a National Geographic documentary filmed earlier this year in which Edwards expressed a different sentiment. "We can be very violent ... and do what we have to do to survive," Edwards said on the video. Edwards testified that the comments were taken out of context. The trial drew about two dozen spectators, including several people wearing black jackets with swastikas and other Nazi symbols. A state trooper told one of the black-jacketed spectators not to stare at witnesses and jurors during a break in the testimony.