Speaker 1: I want to welcome everyone back to part five of
my reading of Crying Wolf Hate Crime Hoaxes in America
by Laird Wilcox. A reminder about Thomas and I doing
movie reviews. If you go over to Freemenbeyond the Wall
dot com forward slash Movies, you'll see the links to
all the movies we've reviewed. We watch and sort of
mystery science theater them, but try to be a little
more serious about it and funny sometimes. All right, this
is part five. We're going to finish up chapter five
and then get into chapter six. Not sure if we
can finish chapter six today, but get as much done
as we can. All right, here we go. Of all
the possible hate crime hoaxes, one would think that an
incident in which a man is deliberately set on fire
would be impossible to fake. Yet such a hoax apparently
happened in Loveland, Ohio, in September nineteen ninety three. Writhing
in pain with burns over seventy five percent of his body,
Milton Metcalf lay in front of a leveland bar Tuesday
and screamed, I was trying to help them. His payoff,
according to police, a cup of gasoline in the face
and a match tossed at him. Police were checking the
possibility the attack was racially motivated. Metcalf is black. He
described his attackers as white. According to Metcalf, thirty, he
was trying to help two men and a pregnant woman
whose pickup truck was at a gas He went home
and got a gas can, had it filled, and brought
it to the trio. Metcalf told police that the truck
would not start. The men asked him to get a
cup of gas to prime the carburetor. When he complied,
one of the men poured it on him, and the
other tossed a lighted match. Metcalf on fire ran across
to Zappa's Sports Bar. Bartender Angela Klaggsgens said. Angela Klaskins said,
we heard a loud bang. It sounded like a gunshot.
We looked at the door and there was a great, giant,
great big fireball. He was screaming. They were trying to
pour it. They were trying to pour it down my throat.
They poured gas on me and set me on fire again.
Richard Pryor for flashbacks here. Loveland, with the population in
ninety nine hundred is ninety seven percent white and two
percent black, according to the nineteen ninety census. Police and
citizens initially speculated on the racial aspect of the crime.
A few days later, another story began to emerge. Police
had discovered a half filled gas can behind a Loveland
shopping center, and accounts by witnesses cast suspicion on Milton
Metcalf's story. Hearing of these developments, the local NAACP demanded
an investigation. Frank Allison, president of the Cincinnati chapter, said,
think if the victim was white, it would have been
handled differently. Finally, the whole story began to come apart.
Police revealed that Metcalf had been convicted in April nineteen
ninety three for filing a false police report that he
had been abducted by two men with a baby. A
detailed police investigation determined that the incident was a hoax
concocted by Metcalf. Also, it was learned that the late
model Ford pickup Metcalf had described had no carburetor and
could not be primed with gas. Finally, although many people
had seen Metcalf in the area of the Clark Clark station,
no one had noticed a truck. Milton Metcalf critically burned,
and the apparent self inflicted victim of a hoax that
backfired subsequently subsequently died from his injuries. Hatred and bigotry,
it seems no no boundaries and no limit to viciousness,
or so it seemed in May nineteen ninety three, when
twelve year old Jake Thompson, a black fifth grader, reported
that no less than ten white and Hispanic boys aged
ten to thirteen had beaten him in the ground, beaten
him to the ground, pushed his head inside a toilet
and flushed it, and then wrote ends must die on
a boy's restroom wall at Ensignal Elementary School in Santa Clara, California.
I don't know swirly and then you know end must die. Yeah.
I wouldn't have bought this one from the start. The
case was originally handled by skeptical school officials who were
cautious about buying the improbable story. Police learned of the
incident a few weeks later while visiting the school on
another matter, and opened a case. The case attracted the
attention of a sympathetic news media, who, it is charged,
blew the case way out of proportion and civil rights
groups who hold for the boy's head send them a
message was the slogan, as powerful interest groups pushed for
prosecution of the youngsters and demanded the indictments of the
youngest defendants ever to go on trial for felony hate crimes,
forcing many of their parents to hire attorneys to represent
the children and others to rely on understaffed and under
financed public defenders. If convicted, the children could be sentenced
to a draconian eight years in California Youth Authority custody.
I'm surprised I didn't try and send them to friggin
San quinton a kafka Escalora to The case began to
emerge as discrepancies and inconsistencies developed, including the date of
the hate crime which changed back and forth. Evidence appeared
that cast doubt upon Jake Thompson's story. According to news reports,
At a hearing held last August, a school monitor testified
that when he saw Jake after the alleged assault, he
showed no signs of bruising or injury. As the case progressed,
the judge began dismissing defendants as the evidence for their
participation evaporated. Hugh Roberts', attorney for an eleven year old
defendant who was released in the case, said this is
a terribly overcharged case made more difficult by community and
media response. Deputy District Attorney Mark Buller admitted that as
the cases evolved, we know information now that we didn't
know then. I'll be Jakimawitz, attorney for a twelve year
old Hispanic boy charging the case, claimed that Buller was
pushing the case because of political and social pressure. When
the case came to trial, the San Jose Mercury reported
recanting his original story to police. A boy testified in
court Wednesday that the alleged beating of a black classmate
was a hoax. Instead, the seventh grader said Jake Thompson
planned the whole incident shortly after school began that day,
then later ripped his own shirt and wet his hair
to make it appear as if he had been beaten.
The boy told how Jake had asked him to lie
and repeatedly called his house to make sure their story
is matched. On the witness stand Tuesday and Wednesday, two
of the prosecution's witnesses changed their stories and contradicted Jake's account.
Of the May fourth incident. As Jake Thompson's story fell apart,
Judge Paul R. Teel had no choice but to acquit
the remaining four defendants. This, however, was not the end
of the story. There was still a possibility for money
to be made. In November nineteen ninety three, attorneys for
Jake Thompson filed a three million dollar civil suit against
Morgan Hill Unified School District, charging that they were negligent
and fared to failed to supervise and control the conduct
of students. In Chicago, a black man who had told
police of an attack by a white motorcycle motorcycle gang
in May nineteen eighty five recanted parts of his stories
after witnesses disputed his assertion that he had been beaten
with chains by gang members. According to witnesses, Otis Jackson's
car was overturned by people whom Jackson had endangered by
driving recklessly. Jackson, twenty five, also withdrew claims that the
whites had harassed him at a stoplight, that a friend
was in the car with him, and that the white
gang had stolen three hundred dollars. Jackson initially said the
gang members had pushed a Molotov cocktail through a hole
in the rear window. Witnesses contradicted Jackson, saying that there
was no motorcycle gang involved in the incident. According to
media reports, witnesses have accused Jackson of trying to run
down people on pedestrian walkways before his car hit a tree.
A crowd became angry after Jackson had driven in reverse
at speeds of forty miles an hour and overturned the
car after he had run off the walkways. The car
exploded because the motor was running. Jackson had told police
he was driving in response to escape the motorcyclists. He explained,
I changed my story to them because I was high.
I don't know why I gave some bad information. I
was high. Jackson had been fired from his security job
after it was learned that Heat was a convicted felon
awaiting trial on charges of possessing two loaded handguns, one
of which was stolen in a burglary. Hoaxes often take
bizarre forms. In nineteen eighty eight, fifty year old Gary A.
Tucker stirred law enforcement officials with the death bed confession
that he had taken part in in nineteen sixty three
church bombing in Birmingham, Alabama, killing four young black girls.
Media sources reported a Justice Department official in Washington said
the local United States Attorney's office and the FBI in
Alabama had sent very optimistic reports to Washington indicating that
mister Tucker might well be telling the truth. According to
federal officials, Tucker really knew his dates and places and
knew the players and the bombing. Later, David Barber, Jefferson
County District Attorney, said that Tucker was a confessor to
a crime he did not commit. Investigators noted that Tucker
didn't even know the location of the church and gave
three different descriptions of the car which he was driving.
Barbara and Frank Donaldson, US attorney for Northern Alabama, said
their only explanation for the hoax was Tucker's physical and
mental condition. Tucker was a cancer patient at the VA
Hospital in Tuscaloosa, Alabama, at the time of his confession.
Tucker's relatives said that he had been diagnosed several years
earlier as a paranoid skitts. His explanation to us was
what he realized he was. What was that he realized
he was dying and wanted to get it off his
conscious conscience. We were really real disappointed at how it
turned out because we want that case solved. Insurance fraud
has been the motive for more than one hate crime hoax.
In March nineteen ninety one, a Fayetteville, Georgia, black couple
was arrested and charged with fraud by arson, having spray
painted racial slurs on the interior walls before setting their
four hundred thousand dollars home on fire. White racists were blamed.
Marcellis and Sandra Jackson were soon arrested and held on
three hundred and fifty thousand dollars bond. They had been
behind in their mortgage payments in phase foreclosure. Their real
estate agent, Lynn Mitchell, was also arrested as a co conspirator.
According to Sheriff Randall Johnson, the fire was Jackson's third
attemp in a month to burn the house down. Jeez,
can've me do that right? Sheriff's Captain Bruce Jordan's said,
by the second we were considering the possibility that it
was not racially motivated and may have been a financial conspiracy.
Nine months later, on December sixth, nineteen ninety one, Marcellus
Jackson was sentenced to fifteen years in prison. Witnesses said
that Jackson sent the fire himself to collect insurance on
the house. They also also testified the Sandra Jackson real
estate agent Lynn Mitchell, and neighbor Cesar Gators conspired to
defraud the mortgage company that financed Jackson's house. Is just
go on and on and on, and you know, as
a reminder, you could say, oh, but these are the exceptions.
Now this is the rule. Where are where are the
real ones? Where are the real ones? When something like
this happens, and it happens for real, it's so far
out of the ordinary. The home of Larry Williams and
Patricia Anderson, a black couple in Arvada, Colorado, was systematically
ransacked November twenty, nineteen ninety and twenty nine. Swastikas were
drawn with a felt marker on the walls for a
black couple okay. The police report noted that the ransacking
had been done in an unusually neat, careful manner. Nothing
was broken and nothing was missing. Williams speculated, I guess
they were trying to drive home a message that they
don't want us in this neighborhood. We're the only blacks here.
Exactly two weeks later, Williams and Anderson return home to
find their home on fire and their blue Thunderbird missing
from the garage. Police reported that the fire had been
deliberately set in four places. The house sustained mostly smoke damage,
a care worn and Daves Williams said, I just can't
believe this. The FBI entered the case, requesting a copy
of the earlier police report. Police report, Arvada Police Lieutenant
Jeff Walker said it's routine for them to look into
ethnic hate crimes like this. We want to make it
perfectly clear that we are not going to tolerate a
situation where a family is singled out and treated this
way because it doesn't happen. Two days after the fire,
the Rocky Mountain News at Denver Daily reported that Williams
and Anderson had been dayluged with an outpouring of sympathy.
Of sympathy, Police Sergeant Merle Westling of the Arvada Police
Department said, We've had calls from people wanting to donate clothing, gifts,
money to help rebuild the house. I've even told I'm
even told that there was a contractor over there this
morning who said he'd donates some time to get the
place straightened up. The Thunderbird was soon located in Denver.
Police reported that someone had put a rock on the
gas pedal and let it run into a parked dump truck.
Police fingerprinted the car for clues. Arvada Police Chief pat
Alstrom said that the investigation is high priority, as is
any crime with a possible racial and ethnic hatred motive.
Why is that different than any other crime? Why? Why?
Because of World War Two? That's the only reason. Y'all
realize that, right, that's the only reason, hate crime, hatred motive, racial? Yeah,
and investigate they did. Police learned that the family was
in severe financial straits and that the house was ensured. Moreover,
police were suspicious from the outset when inconsistencies developed in
their account of the incidents, but in a few days,
Patricia Anderson was arrested along with Lee Andrew Williams, brother
of Larry Williams, who was now was not charged in
the case. Lee Williams and Anderson subsequently entered guilty please.
In May nineteen ninety one, Lee Williams was given ten
years for one count of first degree arson. Patricia Anderson
received five years probation for its emp to theft and
false reporting. In July nineteen ninety nine, an arson fire
seriously damaged the closed Encounters Clothing shopping Kansas City, Missouri's
fashionable Westport shopping area. The owner, Angela Washington Thomas, a
black woman, claimed that it was it was a racially
motivated active hate. At the time of the fire, Thomas
told of racial harassment, including threatening telephone calls, dating from
when she opened the store in July nineteen eighty nine.
She told the reporter, this was a purposeful hate, active hate.
I'm borderline shock that this could happen. I'd rather it
was of something I did personally to someone than because
I'm black. Thomas's claim of racial intimidation brought immense local
and national media attention. Anti racist groups were lamenting the
plight of the brave young woman in calls for harsher
penalties for hate crimes echoed throughout the community. It was
it also brought the FBI into the case, which proved
that the actual perpetrator to be the actual perpetrator's undoing.
According to FBI spokesman Max Gueyman. The FBI conducted an inquiry,
but a determination was made after a preliminary investigation that
the allegations of racism were not supported. Lauren D. Johnson,
a former Kansas City, Kansas firefighter, proved to be the
key to the case. He had been bragging to a
friend that he had been involved in the arson. This
friend told a friend who called police. As the investigation
began to focus on him, Johnson admitted his part in
the crime. The store was failing and it was burned
to collect insurance. Thomas and Johnson were convicted due to
an effective attorney and their willingness to implicate one another
in the crime. Both received relatively lenient sentences. Thomas was
sentenced to sixty days of monitored house arrest in order
to pay thirteen thousand dollars restitution. Johnson was sentenced to
ninety days monitored house arrested and seventy eight hundred in restitution.
Each was also placed on five years probation. That is
the end of chapter five, And wow, does it have
a lot of footnotes? Just that chapter has one hundred footnotes.
Crazy chapter six heading Jews. There can be no question
that faked anti Semitic hate crimes are caused for grief
and consternation in the Jewish community. Jewish concern with persecution
is justifiable. Deep rooted Jewish sensitivity to anti Semitism makes
hoaxes committed by Jews particularly shocking. I guess he's not
gonna do that. These hoaxes are almost always the product
of individuals seeking to achieve a sense of importance through victimhood,
to advance a particular agenda, to seek monetary advantages through
insurance claims or damaged settlements, or perhaps more juveniles engaged
in pranks. I remind you of a friend of mine
who told me that when he was growing up, from
the youngest age, as soon as he could understand, his
mom told him, we are Jews. Everyone wants to kill us.
This is exactly I'm telling you the story in the
language he told me, not quoting perfectly, but I'm not
embellishing either. So it came time. His mom was a
teacher at the school he went to, and he had
always kept secret that he was a Jew. When it
came time for his ba Metzvah, he was getting ready
and his mom invited his classmates, and he had a meltdown.
He said, Mom, they don't know I'm Jewish. Now that
they know I'm Jewish, they're going to try to kill me.
It's twelve to thirteen years old at the time. What
happens to a people who are raised to believe that
everybody wants to kill them, but they're also God's showsen
people and that they're very special. I would say it's
a recipe for incredible narcissism. Not everyone, but that's the
way it would seem to me. That's the way it
would seem to me. Think about like a ruler, Think
about the rule of a country, say a monarchy that
gets passed down and you're raised, you're raised as a prince,
but you're also in a country where there are factions
that would want to harm you, people would want to
take over the throne. Is there a chance that knowing
that you're a prince and that this is your birthright
come bind with the fact that a lot of people
want to kill you, would that cause you to act
a certain way, especially as a ruler, if you had
positions of power, if you had positions of influence. To
think about that really really hard, because I'm willing to
accept some some people are victims of their own environment
and upbringing. That does not excuse behavior. One issue that
needs to be addressed is whether or not there's an
organized campaign to commit racist and anti Semitic hoaxes. For years,
rumors as circulated that a particular organization have been engaged
in this activity. Right wingers are particularly fond of this
notion in that it tends to confirm the conspiracy theories
about the group. What right wingers. Most of the right
wingers I know, I'm recording this on October seventh, twenty
twenty four. Most of the right wingers I know probably
have their Israeli flag at half mass today. Oh, I'm sorry,
the United States flag at half mass today. Who are
these right wingers? It's important to avoid paranoid thinking on
this issue and to reject the kind of reasoning that
suggests that every disturbing event must have a plot of
some kind behind it, and a series of such events
must be the product of a planned conspiracy. I do
agree with that. I do agree with that. I mean,
it's not like you know, some idiot who some rabbi
who decides he needs some attention and spray paint swastika
is on the side of on the side of his temple,
and everything is part of a wide conspiracy. Now just
looking for looking for attention, They're going to be a victim.
Extremely extremists on both sides of this issue tend to
think in terms with predictably unfortunate results. I found no credible,
hard evidence of a bonafide conspiracy or organized campaign to
commit anti Semitic hoaxes. The best evidence is that the
hoax incidents are unconnected in the product of individuals and
not of organizations. I don't think of a conspiracy. I
don't think a conspiracy is required to explain a pattern
of anti Semitic hoaxes. In addition to the psychological pleasures
of victimhood, the advantages to Jewish activists and anti racist
of anti Semitic incidents are obvious, so much so that
it would be reasonably it would be reasonable, so much
so that it would reasonably occur to potential hoaxers upon
simple reflection with no communication between them. Who benefits from
mindless acts of anti Semitic graffiti and vandalism is therefore
all to see, and it is most assuredly not Antisemites.
Some hoaxes have involved plots manner of speaking, and several
of them have involved recognizable conspiracies to commit the particular hoax,
but linkage with other hoaxes is very unlikely, except in
the limited psycho psychological sense of the copycat phenomenon. The
copycat effect is important, however, because it can account for
not only bonafide racial and anti Semitic incidents, but for
additional hoaxes as well. On the other hand, there is
some evidence of a deliberate effort to cover up or
minimize incidents that prove to be hoaxes, usually to avoid
giving anti Semites ammunition. In the words of one journalist,
So they seek to commit this hoax so they can
get attention, they can get sympathy, and get whatever funding.
And then if the hoax is found out, they don't
want you to find out about the hoax because then
it give people what people will realize that your behavior,
you have bad behavior when it comes to this, is
that what it is giving anti semitic, anti semites ammunition.
In the words of one journalist. Okay, if somebody discovers that,
somebody reads this book and realizes, wow, look at all
these hoaxes. Why are they doing this? There's something wrong
and starts to question Jewish motives because all of this
surrounds one identity. I mean, it's there's this meme online
it's like, what's the main cause of anti Semitism? And
if you listen to Bill Marshaw recently, one of the
panelists said, Gentiles, well, thank you for that. Another and
you know, Bill Mark just oh, people are jealous because
we're successful, to which I pointed out on Twitter. Okay,
so the Biden administration is overwhelming majority Jewish. The director
of project for FEMA, not the head of FEMA, like
I said, I made a mistake on Twitter and corrected it.
The head of field operations kind of thing is Jewish.
The head of DHS, the Department of Homeland Security is Jewish. Okay,
would you say that we have a successful government. People
may be successful at getting jobs and keeping them, but
if you look at this government and you think, wow,
this government is terrible. They can't protect us. We need
to take care of ourselves. And then it's pointed out
to you that there's an real overrepresentation of people who
call themselves Jewish who are in this government and especially
in leadership roles. What's your success metric. I'm not trying
to be anti Semitic here, I'm asking a question. I mean,
if it was Chinese people, if Biden's cabinet was overwhelmingly Chinese,
if the head of DHS was Chinese, if the FEMA
field director was Chinese, people would be like, wow, First
of all, there's a lot of Chinese people in our government.
Second of all, they'd be like, I don't seems like
they're not doing a really good job. But there's this
one group that you're not because of everything that I'm
reading here that you're not allowed to I mean, just
the whole thought process behind why you wouldn't make up
hate quote unquote hate crimes there. It's very hard for
me to believe other than people are so indoctrinated against
looking at you know, calling out groups group behavior that
and you know group behavior, when you call it group behavior,
it doesn't have to be everyone, doesn't have to be everyone.
And Israelis will tell you, Zionists will tell you that
everyone in Gaza is they're danger to them. Is everyone
in Gaza danger to them? I don't think so. But
yet when it comes to this one group and people
lose their minds over it, yeah, and people contact me
and they're like, well, you know, you just know. It's like, well,
what do you want me to do? What do you
want me to do? It's like I've said before. I
think I said it on one of my subsec videos.
I'm not the sharpest knife in the drawer, but I
have good pattern recognition. I can memorize stuff. Is that
racist continuing? I have encountered several cases where the news
coverage of an incident was explicitly minimized once it was
discovered to be a hoax. This, of course, is what
is known as spin control, and some anti racist and
human rights group are pretty good at it. The number
of publicized hoaxes such as those documented in this report
is undoubtedly a small fraction of those that you use
that actually occur. The Anti Defamation League itself may have
been party to a significant mess representation on the cover
of the nineteen eighty five issue of the eighty L Bulletin,
where a cover photograph designated designated desecration of a Jewish
home in Kingspoint, New York was clearly a fake. The
swastika depicted does not follow the contours of the panel
door and appears to stand out and away from it.
It was painted onto a photo or a transparency and
then rephotographed. The issue of the bulletin also featured a
major article entitled Anti Semitic Vandalism two year trend Reversed.
The article noted that California, with a population of twenty
three thousand, had experienced ninety nine incidents in nineteen eighty four,
or one incident per two hundred and thirty thirty thousand citizens. Okay,
so in nineteen eighty four they had their population was
twenty three million. At the end of this, I'm going
to look up and see what their population is now. End.
However much that has increased, what percentage would you assume
was from Americans. In February nineteen eight ninety four, the
ADL was involved in a major HOAXT controversy when Donald Mintz,
a member of the ADL's National Commission and candidate from
mayor of New Orleans WOW, was accused of creating and
distributing openly racist and anti Semitic flyers in order to
create sympathy for his candidacy and raise funds for the election. Oh,
I'm just stopping so that you can take that all
in The New York Times reported that a main Mint's
advisor had been charged with a misdemeanor count accusing him
of trying to distribute some of the flyers. An investigation
by the New Orleans Human Relations Commission issued a preliminary
report concluding that at least two of the flyers originated
in the Mint's camp. Pain Min's vigorously denied that he
or anyone in his campaign was responsible for the flyers.
He conceded, however, that his campaign had mailed thousands of
the flyers to Jews throughout the nation in a fundraising effort.
Bob Tucker, campaign manager for Mens's opponent, Ernest Morial, said,
mister Mince self inflicted a racial wound where there was none,
and he did it to raise funds nationally. Mince subsequently
lost the election. He didn't even drop out. He lost
the election. If I seem like I have an attitude
more when I'm talking about these crimes as opposed to
black crimes. When I look at those black crimes, how
many of them were perpetrated by mayoral candidates for some
of the major cities in the country, I think it's
a little more important when it's people with real power
seeking to do this. Laurie A. Wreck thirty five, a
legal secretary, vigorously supported court ordered desegregation in Yonkers, New York.
At a city council meeting in January nineteen eighty eight,
she was heckled in booed by many of the eight
hundred people attending the meeting. A few days later, Wreckt,
who is Jewish, began reporting death threats as a consequence
of wide media coverage of her alleged victimization. Wreck became
a media heroine for her courage and determination in face
of racist attacks. In May nineteen eighty eight, she was
awarded an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters degree by the
College of New Rochelle in recognition of her victimization. That's
another sentence right there, she told friends. As she had
received encouragement and support from all over, and had even
been offered a scholarship to attend law school at Toro College.
Miss Wrec became a very important lady. The ADL had
been in the forefront and support of Miss Wrec. In
November nineteen eighty eight, she once again reported a death
threat on the telephone and claimed to have found racist
and anti Semitic graffiti near her apartment door. It read
end lover Jew, we haven't forgotten you. We will show
the world your cause with your corpse. A bullet waits
for you. Unbeknown to misrect, the FBI had install the
TV camera outside her apartment and it's probably a TV camera,
probably undercover camera. That wording seems a little weird, and
attached security equipment to her telephone line to catch the perpetrators.
The equipment showed that no threatening call had been received,
and the hidden camera recorded Misrecked writing the racist and
anti semitic threat on the wall next to her own apartment.
Wrecked admitted in court to aligning to FBI agents. She
faced a potential sentence of five years in prison in
a two hundred and fifty thousand dollars fine. Instead, she
received five years probation, no jail time, no fine. Notice
up top, when we were talking about the black people
like the ones who try to commit fraud, that these
are people who actually did time in jail. Let's see
if any of these in this group gets jail time
of any significant I mean we have one person getting
ten years up there, so not undeserved, and must say
I mean it's definitely deserved it. But November twenty fourth,
nineteen eighty five, AP dispatch from New York City reported
vandals through rocks through windows of eight Jewish owned shops.
Mayor Edward Koch said the city would offer ten thousand
dollars reward. Ed Koch Wow memories come flooding back. The
Jewish Community Relations Council offered a five thousand reward as well.
The windows were broken in the predominantly Orthodox Jewish areas
of Borough Park and Flatbush and Brooklyn. Two weeks later,
windows in another seven stories were broken in the enclave
of one hundred thousand Orthodox Jews and three hundred synagogues.
Think about that. That's a lot of synagogues in one
section of the city. Newspapers around the nation reacted to
what shock and outrage and compared the incident to Crystal
Knocht when Nazis terrorized Jews in pre war World War
II Germany. Even though no swastikas or anti Semitic graffiti
were found in the buildings, there are mistakes in that sentence.
I will not stop to correct them, because let's remember,
normy leftists is actually writing this. Pressure from the Jewish
community brought increase you can just listen to I have
plenty of episodes covering this and what actually happened. Pressure
from the Jewish community brought increased police patrols and calls
for greater vigilance against antisemitism. Although no antisemitism had been proven,
nine of the twelve detectives in the police Department's bias
unit had been assigned to the case. Within two weeks,
Mordecai Levi, a leader of the Jewish Defense Organization, a
militant Zionist group with a reputation for terrorism, announced that
the group was organizing night patrols. However, on December ninth,
the mystery was solved. According to press reports, a thirty
eight year old Jewish man with the history of psychological
problems was arrested in connection with the smashing of windows
and Jewish owned shops in the Borough Park and Flatbush
sections of Brooklyn. Police had arrested Gary Dworkin, who lived
nearby on forty third Street in Brooklyn. He was subsequently
charged with thirteen accounts of criminal mischiefs, some of which
were felonies, including one count of discrimination. Media accounts emphasized
his emotional instability implying that that was the reason for
his behavior. Brooklyn District Attorney Elizabeth Holtzman issued a statement
that his vandalism was directed at Israel, Israelis and Hasidic Jews.
In February nineteen seventy nine, one Michael James Gutman applied
for a permit to hold the Neo Nazi rally in
the shadow of Philadelphia's Independence Hall. Gutman claimed the National
Socialist White People's Party would provide its own protection if
police didn't. The application, reported in the Philadelphia Daily News,
created an enormous stir in the city's Jewish community, one
of the largest in the nation. According to the News,
the application stated that signs reading Hitler was right and
gas kami Jews would be shown, and that the avowed
purpose of the rally was to show the world ends
and Jews are cowards. The News also reported that the
Jewish Defense League had announced last week that it would
meet force with force. Two days later, the Park Service
rescinded the permit according to terms of the agreement reached
with attorneys representing survivors of the Holocaust who had challenged
to permit in a federal court hearing. Here that permit
was withdrawn when the man who received it, identified as
James Goodman, could not be found to testify. Today, an
investigation revealed that the man posing as James Goodman may
have been using a stolen identification card. Police. Philadelphia Police
said that Mordecai Levi, associated with the Jewish Defense League,
had once been arrested in New York City using information
from the same stolen card. In August nineteen eighty three,
a series of fires in West Hartford, Connecticut, terrorized the
Jewish community and evoked media comparisons to the Night of
Broken Glass, when Nazis terrorized Jews in pre World War
Two Germany. Like I said before, fires were set at
Young Israel Synagogue, the Emmanual Synagogue, and the home of
Rabbi Solomon Krupka. In September, the home of Connecticut State
Representative Joan who is Jewish, was set on fire. Kemler
had spoken out against the unknown perpetrator of the three
previous fires. Police involvement in the matter was intense. Nationwide
media attention focused on the incident, which had launched several
legislative proposals to curb bigotry and violence. Police Chief Francis
Reynolds double patrols in the predominantly Jewish section of town
West Hartford. Mayor Charlie R. Charles R. Maddies announced a
fifty thousand dollars reward. Indeed, police staked out entire square
blocks of West Hartford hoping to find someone, hoping to
charge someone with arson. An article by Barbara Sullivan in
the Chicago Tribune was typical of the coverage. She quoted
an elderly, white haired man who sobbed I had relatives
in the Holocaust. I never thought I'd see this happen again.
Scott Fiegelstein of the Connecticut Regional office of the Anti
Antidefamation League is quoted as saying, we have to be
realistic because of our history. We have to take utmost caution.
Perhaps good has come out of all of this because
it's drawn people together, but how sad it's come from
something too terrible. I think the most important part of
that statement is perhaps good has come out of all
of this because it's drawn people together. The Jewish Defense
League announced that they would have arm patrols operating West Hartford.
The Hartford Current published an apology for their insensitive coverage.
Of this and another incident in which an anti Semitic
note was found on the doorstep of a West Hartford home,
the paper editorialized the Current, for its part, must continue
to walk that delicate line between informing the public and
not playing into the arsenist's hand. The paper must be
careful not to inflame an already touch the situation. And
early suspect in the case was Barry Dave Schuss, a
seventeen year old Jewish student. An FBI psychological profile of
the arsenists clearly pointed to Schuss, as did several other indicators.
Only on December fourteenth, newspapers reported that Schuses had confessed
to all four arsons. In fact, Schus had confessed to
his rabbi, Solomon Krupka, several days before his family and
the police were notified. Grupka claimed that the relationship between
a clergyman and congregant is privileged. Grupka disavowed any responsibility
for not notifying the police, which would have saved taxpayers
thousands of dollars. In calm tense nerves, damage control in
this case was a masterpiece. Jack Schuss, the boy's father,
said that he had some problems in the past and
had been receiving treatment from time to time. An editorial
in the Hartford Current spoke of a troubled and alienated
seventeen year old. The editorial quoted Rabbi Kryptka, it's time
not to be judgmental, but to feel the feeling. Now
is how we would as a family react. We have
to be very sympathetic to his family. Obviously you're thinking
the same thing at this point. It's just saying it
is just so if it had been a gentile, would
they be saying the same thing, all right? Would we
be being sympathetic to his family or be blaming them
for raising the next hitler? It's really tiresome. It was
revealed that until Schus confessed to his crimes, they did
not have enough evidence to arrest him, even though several
times circumstances pointed directly to him. In fact, Schuss was
a suspect virtually from the beginning. At one point during
the investigation, police kept thirty three thirty three officers in
the neighborhood where the fires occurred. The Hartford Current reported
that six homes were watched twenty four hours a day.
In about a dozen suspects were given lie detector tests.
At least fifteen officers were assigned to door to door interviews.
More than three hundred people eventually were about the fires.
Following his arrest on four counts of second degree arson,
each of which carries a minimum twenty year sentence, a
motion was made to try Schuss as a youthful offender,
even though he had planned to set at least four
additional fires before he was apprehended. On February twenty seventh,
nineteen eighty four, Hartford Superior Court Judge John D. Brennan
gave Barry Doves Schuss a suspended sentence and placed on
five years probation. In a statement to the court, Shush
said that a possible reason for setting the synagogue fires
was to show vulnerability of the police or the synagogue
to Antisemitic violence. Even the rich and famous or not
immune to anti Semitic coaxes. No less of a personage
than Morton Danny Junior was caught in such a fabrication.
In May nineteen eighty nine, Donny claimed that he had
been accosted by either one, two or three neo Nazi
skinheads and the men's restroom at the San Francisco Airport.
That's because that's I mean neo Nazis and San Francisco.
That's what I think. And as first play as I
jumped to if I think, oh, neo Nazi skinheads, San Francisco, Minneapolis,
Greenwich Village, New York, Yeah, that sounds about right. They
then pinned him against a toilet stall, drew a swastiker
on his face, and cut a small swatch from his scalp.
According to Downy, then they gave the Nazi sig Hiles
salute and left. According to Newsweek magazine, airport police weren't
buying it. Officers on the scene said Downy only had
a couple of lines on his face, not the full
swastik he displayed to the press, and none of the
dozen or so people near the bathroom saw anything. Set
an airport sergeant draw your own conclusions. Downy later admitted
that incident was publicity and it was pre arranged. Went
of Downy's former producers at the WWRTV in San francisc
said Morton knew his show was in trouble and he
was trying to make a splash in the San Francisco market.
What's said, what does that say about San Francisco. I
don't know Swastikas, while regarded as specific to anti Semitism,
have become a universal symbol of racism and ethnic bigotry,
have they? In San Francisco, two non Jewish minority fire
inspectors reported finding a wooden plaque with a swastika painted
on it in their office in January nineteen eighty eight.
A San Francisco Chronicle account reported their discovery was deemed
a striking instance of racial harassment in the troubled department
and led to the resignation of Fire Chief Edward Phipps.
The incident was troubling in other aspects as well. Fire
Captain Michael McKinley found certain contradictions and inaccuracies and statements
given by fire inspectors Walter Batiste and David's Son. He
asked them to submit to a polygraph machine. He said
that key witnesses who disputed their statements had passed light
detector tests. Batiste and Son were granted disability leave for
stress since they allegedly found the plaque. Captain McKinley said
they had been sent registered letters asking them to come
back for more questioning, but neither replied. The men sought
the assistance of private attorneys in the matter, and the
case was dropped from public view. Oh wow, co Op
City have a relative that lives there, still lives there
been there many times in New York City. Residents of
co Op City, a massive housing cooperative in the Bronx,
found anti Semitic reffedi and swastikers dabbed dabbed, dabbed daubed
on fifty one apartment doors and walls in March nineteen
eighty four. The incident received wild wide publicity, including comparisons
with Nazi Germany. A thirty five hundred dollar reward was
offered for the perpetrators. Later, two Jewish teenagers tried to
collect a reward by turning in someone else and were
The two youths, aged fourteen and fifteen, were charged as
juveniles with conspiracy, criminal mischief, and falsely reporting a police incident.
They are also suspected of other racist and anti Semitic
incidents dating back over a several month period, all of
which had been attributed to racists. As usual, the crimes
received far more attention than the revelations of fraud. On
July fifteen, nineteen eighty seven, a Rockville, Maryland Jewish woman
and her Roman Catholic husband awoke at four to forty
five am to find a fire in the shape of
a swastika burning on their lawn. Neo Nazi skinheads and
KKK were widely speculated as to perpetrators responsible for the outrage.
Elise Rothschild of the Montgomery County Human Rights Commission spoke
of the fire as an active terror and said that
there has to be an outcry from everybody in the
country that we will not tolerate this type of behavior.
It is totally not acceptable. It's incredible that like this
happened in Rockville, Maryland and immediately they go to the
whole country has to be a part of this. Lieutenant
Carvill Harding, the Montgomery County Marshall reported that the perpetrator
came forward and confessed that the urging of his father.
Gary Elstein, a nineteen year old Jewish man, confessed to
the crime and implicated a longtime friend, John F. Finnigan,
as the actual perpetrator. According to Harding, Stein claimed that
his buddy did it. On July nineteen eighty nine, the
Asbury Park Press reported that two unnamed Jewish teenagers had
been arrested on the morning of July fifteenth for throwing
firecrackers at passing cars. The two youths were apprehended after
a chase. A subsequent investigation quickly linked them to an
incident in which swastikas and anti Semitic remarks were painted
on a home and car. According to Marlborough Township Police,
the two were charged with seven counts of criminal mischief,
four counts of burglary, and two counts of theft. Mark Grayer,
President of Temple Rhodolph Tora of Western Monmouth. Western Monmouth, remarked,
there is enough anti semitism from non Jews. I would
hope people brought up in a Jewish home would protect
the religion. Something obviously went wrong. Had the swastika painting
and anti Semitic graffiti been the active been the act
of non Jews, the incident would certainly have been prosecuted
as a hate crime. This was not done. However, according
to Detective Sergeant Robert Holmes, it's tough to prove their
actions are anti Semitic if they are both Jewish. The
Yasbury Park Press quoted unnamed community leaders and scholars familiar
with anti Semitism, to the effects that the teenagers probably
acted out of personal reasons rather than religious hatred. Jackson Toby,
director of the Institute for Criminological Research at Rutgers University,
noted that the incidents might have been motivated by an
attempt to arouse and blow the minds of the local
Jewish community. He added, if you want to get people excited,
start talking about prejudice and racism. They know. Three men
allegedly entered a Milwaukee synagogue and poured a caustic substance
on Buzz Cody, the sexton. The December nineteen eighty five
incident occurred just a few hours before the start of Hanukkah,
a major Jewish holiday holiday. Cody, a former Roman Catholic
who had converted to Judaism twelve years previous, said that
one of the men demanded that he unlocked the sanctuary's arc,
where four of the synagogue's eleven main tours are kept.
He said, the men demand and open it up. We
want your holy Quran, and referred to the group with
the initials PDL, possibly referring to Palestinian Defense League. Cody
described the men as being dark complexion and speaking with
Middle East accents. The synagogue senior Rabbi Francis Barry Silberg
said that Cody was obviously willing to sacrifice himself for
his faith in his duety and the integrity of the synagogue.
Alert police detectives suspected a hoax from the beginning. Milwaukee
Police Lieutenant William Vogel said, I can't justify it with
the investigative results as they have been presented to us.
When you're talking about something involving a radical group, they
don't operate in this manner. The skepticism prompted the Milwaukee
Journal to editorialize that the police uncertainly seemingly demean the
episode's seriousness, which could be interpreted as reflecting police insensitivity.
In July nineteen eighty five, the Jewish Community Center in
Milwaukee had been defaced with nine spray painted swastikas. A
year before that, in June nineteen eighty four, the Congregation
Beth l ned Nair Tamid in nearby Mekwan was defaced
and several red spray panted swasis with several spray panted swastikas.
The incident was followed by anonymous telephone calls in the area,
one of which said that the Defense League is at
war with the Jewish community. On December nineteen, nineteen eighty five,
Cody's apartment was allegedly vandalized. The walls were covered with
anti Semitic symbols, again in race red spray paint, including
a large swastika and the letters PDL. Police could find
no fourth entry. Rabbi Silberg said the victim has been revictimized.
An investigation it turned up no such as organization as
Palestinian Defense League or PDL. On May fifteenth, nineteen eighty six,
Cody was charged with two counts of his obstructing an
officer in connection with reports he had made to police
after receiving threatening telephone calls which police had determined were
not true. A tracer installed by the phone company has
shown that at least two of the calls were placed
from Cody's private line. Later that same day, possibly fearing
discovery and disgrace Buzz, Cody tragically committed suicide. Police Captain
Ronald Mell, referring to the alleged December nineteen eighty five
attack on Cody, said there was no shred of evidence
to support the allegation. No further PDL incidents followed Cody's death.
Sixteen months after arson destroyed Woodside Synagogue in Silver Spring, Maryland,
no arrest had yet been made. At the time of
the April eighth, nineteen eighty six fire. Community leaders rallied
to the aid of the Orthodox Jewish Congregation and supported
a wave of demands that urgent action be taken to
stem anti Semitism and hate crimes. Lieutenant Carvel Harding, a
Montgomery County fire inspector, thinks he knows the culprit's identity,
although he lacks sufficient probable cause to arrest the subject.
Harding told Washington Jewish Week that we feel we know
the motive, but if we tell you, you'll know who the
person is. This is very touchy, he said. Harding also
said the arson was not an act against people of
the Jewish faith. Synagogue sources said one member who had
since left the area, was brought in for questioning and
is still a suspect. Doctor Sheldon Jacobson, a Jewish dentist,
discovered a fire in the form of a large swastika
burning on his lawn at his Hewlett Neck, New York
home in August nineteen seventy nine. It was thought that
the incident was another in a series of racial offenses
that had allegedly occurred in the area in the last
several weeks. A few days later, police had their culprit.
He was Douglas Khan, a Jewish teenager who had been
angered about because Jacobson's dog had defecated on his front lawn.
He retaliated by pouring gasoline in the form of a
twenty by twenty foot swastika on Jacobson's lawn and lighting it. Khan,
who had worked as a guard at Kennedy Airport, was
later convicted a fourth degree criminal mischief, placed on three
years probation, and ordered to pay six hundred and fifty
dollars in restitution. How many hate crimes can one bear?
That's what Nathan Cobrian was asking himself all summer in
nineteen ninety one, and there's no end in sight. Cobra
and a Jewish man from Concord and California, claimed to
have been the victim of anti Semitic telef phone calls.
Letters are sent in verbal threats on twenty separate occasions
between May seventeenth and Labor Day, nineteen ninety one, all
threatening his life. Moreover, he claimed that the ordeal has
damaged his health. On August sixth, when an unidentified woman
told him he would die, he stopped eating. According to Corbin,
my nerves were shot and my stress level was very high.
On August eighth, Cobran became almost totally paralyzed. He was
taken to a hospital and released the same day. However,
after an article on the Northern California Jewish Bulletin appeared
detailing his courageous battle with anti Semitism, followed by another
sympathetic account in the August seventeenth Contra Constant Times, his
spirits lightened. He received some fifty calls to support. According
to Cobrin, people were telling me that they weren't Jewish,
but they knew what I was going through. All kinds
of people called Hispanics were calling blacks. The whole ethnic
tossed salad. It was amazing. The harassment of Coburn began
on May seventeenth, when Halim Abdul Sanjai, a Muslim who
lived in the same apartment building, allegedly threatened Croburn because
he was Jewish. Sanjani was arrested He was jailed a
second time July twelfth, when he resisted Concord police who
were serving a restraining order on Cobran's behalf. Over the
next several weeks, Cobrn claimed to have received numerous telephone
death threats and awakened twice to find his backyard fence
on fire. On August sixteenth, Coburn received a letter that
read dropped charges or I kill you jew Boy. Sanjani
twenty eight, who was originally charged with resisting arrest and
hitting an officer, found himself also charged with making terroristic
threats and interviewing with Cobrn's civil rights. He faced several
years in prison. Having acquired status as a heroic victim
of bigotry and prejudice, Coburn became widely known in the
San Francisco Bay Area. His case was used as an
illustration of the hatred toward Jews that lurks about in
our society. However, on September twenty first, nineteen ninety one,
Bay area residence were presented with a different story. The
Oakland Tribune reported a Concord man who claims to have
been the victim of twenty two anti Semitic attacks since
May told investigators yesterday that he fabricated ten of the
alleged incidents, police said. Nathan Cobrin, thirty six, said he
was the victim of terroristic phone calls, hate letters, and
two arson fires that were set in his patio. He
blamed most of the attacks on his former neighbor, twenty
eight year old Halim Abdul Sajani. Yesterday, Cobran admitted its
investigators that he ignited two fires in his patio, left
two terroristic messages on an answering machine, and wrote six
hate letters to himself. Concord Detective Stuart Rolinson discovered Coburn's
fabrication the night of September ninth, after Cobran claimed to
have received a threatening anti Semitic note, one of six
he had admitted to falsifying, and that he had chased
an assailant through a parking lot. Detective Rolison, who had
been watching the apartment all night, hadn't seen any of
the alleged incidents. Ralison also previously suspected that Coburn was
lying about some of the incidents. The ADL, which had
basted in the publicity against anti semitism and hate crimes,
brought by Cobran's fabrications was caught holding the bag. Richard Hershaut,
executive director of the ADL Central Pacific Regional Office, who
had several contacts with Coburn, spoke of the developments in
a shocked and shaken voice. He said, the tragedy of
Nathan Coburn in no way discouncer diminishes the reality of
increased antisemitism and the increased throughout society and hate crimes.
The false charges against Sujani were subsequently dropped. Coburn was
ordered to appear for a ram in January thirty first,
nineteen ninety two, in Contra Costa Superior Court. He was
charged with one count of perjury, two counts of artison,
and six counts of preparing false documentary evidence, all her felonies.
In addition, he was charged with nine misdemeanor counts of
making false police reports. Coburn was convicted in nineteen ninety two.
Deputy District Attorney Terry Barker said he should receive the
maximum sentence for committing hate crimes, eight years in state prison.
She commented, I argue that these were hate crimes and
they were done out of a motive against mister so
Johnny because of his race. It was sophisticated, because there
was a lot of planning involved. It was a hideous
misuse of the system and of emergency personnel. In July,
he was sentenced to one year in the county jail,
in spite of please from his attorney that his sentence
be suspended. Nancy diner An, a DL official who attended
the sentence, said that Cobrin's hoax will not change the
way it investigates anti Semitic crimes. One year. That's all
we've gotten so far in all these readings. We haven't
gotten definitive on every case. That's what we have so far.
One year. And I mean, what do you think he's
going to serve the whole year. Usually if they serve
the whole year, they give you a year and a day.
In February nineteen, four ninety four, a Jewish student at
the Kansas City area Leewood Middle School was apprehended after
he distributed anonymous anti Semitic notes, apparently only to other
Jewish students. According to media sources, the perpetrator was identified,
and it is thought to be responsible for placing anonymous
Jewish notes with pencil drawn swastikas and phrases such as
go home jew in the books and lockers of six
students over two weeks. The incident caused a major fear
among parents of students at the school, and some threatened
to use the legal system to force release of the
student's name. Leewood Police Chief Stephen Cox criticized members of
the community and the media for creating a feeding frenzy
over the incident. He said, the child is already an
intensive counseling and so are the parents because they are
responding appropriately. I see no need whatsoever for any further
involvement or sanctions, though through either the criminal justice system
or the school system. What is very harmful now is
to continued turmoil at the school, children accusing each other
divisive efforts to identify the child. I would urge that people.
I would urge these people to carefully consider their own
motives before taking such action. I mean, how many times
can you say it? I mean, if it was genuine
quote unquote, some gentile or black or I mean all
genzaws doing this, everyone will want to know. But no, no,
we need to protect protect this one because oh what
do you think some of the leading cause of people
going uh, I don't know about this group of people behavior.
I don't know. Uh. One of the stranger cases of
fake dancy Semitic violence was staged in nineteen ninety one
by a former volunteer firefighter in Sugarloaf Mountain, Colorado, who
said he was mistaken as a Jew. Terry Hutter, who
claimed that a mysterious fire set at his home was
one of the several alleged hate crimes committed against him
since nineteen ninety four by people who wrongly believed he
was Jewish. The fire was contained before the home was destroyed,
but another fire completed the destruction. A month later, The Boulder,
Colorado Deli Camera reported investigators discovered that in a videotape
of the fire, Hudder inadvertently was recorded talking about setting
the fire. Hudder and another man involved in the tape conversation,
Curtis Kobe, didn't realize they were being recorded. In April
nineteen ninety two, Terry Hudder pleaded no contest to a
charge a third degree arson. He was sentenced to eight
years probation and mandatory psychiatric counseling. He couldn't even get
a Chicago area case of anti Semitism vandalism in a
West Rogers Park townhouse was originally thought by police to
be a hate crime. On February fifth, nineteen ninety four, however,
police had arrested Shas Steel, seventeen, and his fourteen year
old girlfriend. The two were charged with vandalism and with
burglar as an the same house. Belmont Area Police Sergeant
Rick Batrich said that the youth who apparently knew the
owner of the townhouse, and that the two painted the
graffiti to link the burglary with the other unsolved anti
Semitic incidents in the area. They did this to throw
some attention off themselves. He said. It was one of
the worst anti Semitic cemetery desecrations in recent memory. Los
Angeles County Sheriff's investigator initially believed that the June nineteen
ninety one incident at Home of Peace Cemetery in East
Los Angeles, one of the oldest Jewish cemeteries in the area,
may have been a hate crime. According to news reports,
more than twenty five tombstones were knocked over in Nazi
swastikas kkk Ku klux Klan KKK's and devil worship slogans
were painted on some walls and tombs and just throwing
everything out there. I was just within days the case
was solved. The owner of CDTA Security, Roger Cardo Sapien,
twenty seven, of Rosemead, wanted to obtain the security contract
on the Jewish cemetery. According to according to authority, Sapien,
with the aid of two confederates, apparently committed the vandalism
in order to discredit the firm now providing security. There.
Information on the case took detectives to Sapien's home, where
they found the guard dogs recently stolen from the cemetery.
The three were booked for investigation of vandalism of religious cemetery,
a felony, and Sapian was charged with theft of the dogs. Huh.
Cooper City, Florida, I know those bliss In Cooper City, Florida,
Jerme and Jamie Brown Rodal, a Jewish couple, returned home
to find their helme trashed and burglarized. April nineteen ninety three.
Incident included anti Semitic grafeiti in the form of swastikas
painted on the walls. News reports indicated that outraged community leaders,
police and residents moved quickly to stem what they thought
was to start of a trend in hate crimes. Within
two weeks, an interfaith council to promote unity among ethnic
and religious groups was organized. A detailed eight month joint
investigation with the Cooper City Police, the FBI, in the
Florida State Department of Insurance, fraud was conducted. According to police,
detected Bobby Kates. In the weeks prior to the burglary,
Jamie Rodell purchased several expensive items. She then conspired with
several people to stage the burglary and vandalism. She also
filed acclaim with Allstate, her insurer, for forty seven thousand
dollars in losses and damages. The insurance company paid Rodal
thirty thousand. After she collected the money. Jamie Rodell left
her husband and began living an expensive lifestyle with a boyfriend.
In December nineteen ninety three, she was charged with fraud
and grand theft. She was freed on two thousand dollars bail.
Her estranged husband was not charged in the case. Swastika
painting vandals were suspected of setting fire to the basement
of a downtown Denver restaurant June tenth, nineteen ninety The
restaurant's jewe owners were beside themselves with outrage at the
ugly graffiti. Hitler Reborn died. Juw Lee Waldman, owner of
the Eggshell restaurant, also noted the business was down forty percent.
According to the Rocky Mountain News, Denver police intelligence officers
suspected skinhead involvement. Denver Mayor Frederico Pgna nineteen ninety nineteen
ninety YEA ordered an investigation into recent racist attacks in
the city, and the News carried several alarmist articles on
growing racism and anti semitism. Lee Waldman said, I think
there's a lot more anti semitism in Denver than people realize.
I think he, I mean, he sounds like he was
very hopeful of this. City leaders responded with outrage, stepped
up police activity, and called for new anti racist legislation.
Of course it did. As the investigation proceeded, however, it
became more and more apparent the skinheads were not involved
in the event, and the possibility of a hoax loomed
and their horizon. Denver police have heavily infiltrated local gangs
and skinhead groups and have kept meticulous track of racist
and anti Semitic incidents in the community. The News noted
that most incidents were committed by adolescents, perhaps bored and
ignorant of the consequences of their acts, and not by
organized hate groups, a fact that is often ignored. A
one paragraph article finally noted that swastika is spray painted
on the walls of the restaurant may have been an
effort to mislead. In a later article on hate crime hoaxes,
news reporter Kevin Flynn noted that after all the grandstanding
and headlines, the spray painting of swastikas and the eggshell
arson is now believed to have been a hoax and
not to have involved neo Nazi skinheads at all. Investigators
believe the swastikas were meant to divert suspicion. In one
prominent case, the suspected perpetrator of a hate crime hoax
and insurance fraud was acquitted on the basis of insufficient evidence.
Susan and Curtis Klein, a young Jewish couple, returned to
find their Germantown, Maryland, townhouse vandalized swastikas were painted on
the living room carpet, bedroom mirrors, walls, and hallways. Most
of their clothes were ripped, and most of their furniture
was either painted black, ripped, scratched, or smashed. The deliberateness
and effort required to commit the March nineteen ninety one
vandalism was highly unusual and alleged hate crimes. Someone would
have had to spend the better part of an hour
attending to the detail graffiti and vandalism in the bedroom
of their eight year old son. The words jew boy
were sprayed on a mirror. According to mister Klein, the
officer said, this is the worst case of vandalism he's
ever seen in a private home. He added, we grew
up being taught about the Holocausts and being sold never again,
and here we are now. I don't think we've gotten
through the state of shock. The apparent hate crime was
committed just a day before. The hate crime was committed
just a day before. Jeffrey Lee Escu, a self styled skinhead,
was acquitted of breaking and entering the delicious destruction and
religious vandalism at an Orthodox Jewish boys' school in Montgomery
County Maryland. The response to the anti semitic vandalism was overwhelming.
Five hundred people volunteered to help Curtis and Susan clean
up their home. A raffle was organized to raise money
for the Clins. Area businesses donated food and soft drinks
for the volunteers, and local hauling company offered to provide
a truck to haul debris. Newspapers printed an address where
donations could be sent to the Klein family. Police skepticism
crystallized early in the investigation. Aside from the unusual time
consuming deliberateness of the attack, the most obvious clue was
the issue of secondary gain. The clients became local heroes
and symbols of the struggle against anti Semitism. Moreover, according
to the news reports, mister Klein claimed that ninety percent
of their belongings were slash broken, shredded, or marred with
black spray paint that was used to write hate graffiti
throughout the house. A review of hate crimes against property
and anti Semitic vans dalism suggests the cases where the
perpetrators go to this much effort to send the message
are extremely rare for a person to take time to
shred clothes, for example, implies a deep personal motive for
the vandalism, suggesting that it might have been someone with
a personal animus against the victim. Investigators could not locate
anyone who fit this description. On the other hand, cases
like this often proved to be hoaxes. According to Montgomery
Police spokesman Harry Gering, we have not established a motive.
We have no suspects. As strange, why was this family targeted?
There were other Jewish families in the area. Before long,
the media began reporting that Curtis Klein was a suspect
in the case. Although no charges have been filed, the
client's attorney, Barry Healthend and Alan Goldstein were accused. Were accused.
Police accused police of leaking information to the press. Goldstein
spoke of it in conspiratorial terms, saying the police were
trying to poison the public's mind. It was also learned
that client had been charged with stealing approximately thirteen hundred
from a Germantown beauty salon where he used to work.
An advice from his attorneys, Klein refused to answer any questions.
On July six, Montgomery County Police charge client with felony, theft,
destruction of property, and filing a false crime report in
order to collect more than thirty one thousand dollars from
his insurance company. Anti Defamation League regional director David Friedman,
who had taken an interest in the case, expressed sadness
as the direction the case had taken. Klein denied the
charges and said he had been a victim of hate violence.
His wife was not charged. A district court statement of
charges detailed several inconsistencies in Clin's account. Montgomery County Detective
Kevin Stone said that the entry was apparently not forced.
Curtis Klein reported to work as a hairdresser about ten
to fifteen am on the day of the incident, gave
him ample time to vandalize the house. A neighbor said
the Klein's dog, who had always barked the strangers, didn't
bark that up morning. Although many of the client's belongings
were destroyed or damaged, some items that were obviously Jewish
were not harmed, somewhat the opposite of what might be
expected in a bona fide hate crime. Police immediately searched
for a spray paint can, but it was three days
later that the clients turned in a can they said
was found under the debris. The can had been purchased
at the hardware store closest to the Klein residence, and
a clerk said that Curtis Klein had been in the
store on the morning of the vandalism. Klein had first
claimed that sixty seven hundred and fifty dollars worth of
jewelry had been stolen, but later said it was not missing.
The statement also said that the clients were in debt,
including five thousand odes to the irs and seven thousands
of relatives. Their combined income was forty one thousand, from
which five hundred and eighty monthly was for car payments
and seven hundred and sixty five for rent on the townhouse.
Police said they had taken out of renter's insurance policy
less than three months before the incident, had broken their
lease and made plans to move shortly before the vandalism.
In September nineteen ninety one, the case came to trial.
Eight prosecution witnesses testified. Frank Bell, property specialists for the
USAA Property and Casualty Insurance Company, said the client had
claimed compensation for a glass topped dining room table. Bell
testified that a chunk was broken from the table when
he inventory damages on March twenty fifth. However, a police
photograph taken to the table during the investigation on March
twenty first showed that it was unbroken at that time,
suggesting that it had been broken afterward. Nevertheless, the evidence
against Clein, although seemingly strong, was circumstantial. Hardware store clerk
Jay Russell could not identify mister Klein as the man
who purchased a spray paint, although he remembered him in
the store that morning, Claiming that the evidence presented by
the state was speculative, Judge William C. Miller found for
the defense and acquitted Curtis Klein of all charges respect
to the failure of the Klein's dog to bark of
the alleged vandal. Miller said, the only thing the court
her is that this dog is not a very good watchdog.
A week later, Marylynd's assistant state's attorney, James Trusty, dropped
the charges in the alleged theft of thirteen hundred dollars
from Clin's former employer. Client been accused of destroying and
falsifying receipts between November one and November sixteenth, nineteen ninety
police said client's attorney, Barry Heflin, said, my client has
already admitted it to the police. My client had a
nervous breakdown over this case. In spite of his admission,
I'd have won the case. He has been reimbursed by
by his former employee. He has reimbursed his former employees,
but it was not over yet. Once again, the mysterious
anti Semitic vandal struck the hapless Klein family in July
nineteen ninety two, fifteen months after the first anti Semitic incident.
Susan Klein says she opened the door of her new
apartment and faced a black Nazi swastika painted on the walls.
As in the March nineteen ninety one incident, couches, chairs, drapes,
and clothing were slashed, Drawers were strewn about, china closet
and kitchen cupboard doors were open, and everything seemed to
have been spotted by black spray paint. Jew was painted
across the table and a picture of a rabbi was slashed.
Police said they found no sign of fourth entry. Miss
Klein pressed concern that police would consider her husband a
suspect once again. I mean, I just don't know what's
where to go. I mean, it's it's just frustrating. I mean,
everyone will throw in your face. The synagogue shooting in
Pittsburgh's fucking horrible. I think, I you don't want to
live in a country like that. You don't want to
live in a country where shit like that happens. You
don't want to live in a country that has disorder
like that. You want order, You don't want that to
happen no matter what. But that seems to be as
fucking horrible as that is. It seems to be the
a crazy exception, a tragic exception. We have a hoax
problem in this country. It just seems that. I mean,
when you look around and you see just basically how
abusive this government is, dropping thousands and thousands, tens of
thousands of Haitians into one town, not responding properly to storms.
You would expect people to respond with violence, frankly, not something,
not something I'm calling for, but you would almost expect, Wow,
this is going to cause people to But they don't.
I mean, people just don't do this. Yet we have
to put up with this and see no one go
to jail for it and people actually using the excuse
that well, you know, at least it raised awareness awareness
for what. All Right, So we finished chapter six and
we're onto chapter seven where it says other minorities, and
I guess we'll jump into some first. One looks like Asia,
like Asian. There were ads in this, and you can
avoid those ads by subscribing. If you do Substack or Patreon,
you get an RSS feed, you get the episodes early
and ad free gum Road. You can play it right
on gum road or download the file and if you
do it on my website or on subscribe star, you
get the file. So yeah, and that's it. We'll be
back for chapter seven. I think there's only three chapters left,
so this will be over pretty soon. But I hope
that I hope you're getting a lot out of this.
I hope you're staying a lot. So that's it. Take
care till the next time. Thanks,