Lawmen Tied to Klan
In Communists' Protest
ATLANTA, Oct. 1 —After a six-month
investigation, the Institute for Southern
Studies has determined that there was
an "Intimate alliance" among the district attorney's office and police officials in Greensboro, N.C, and Ku Klux
Klan and American Nazi gunmen who
killed five members of the Communist
Workers Party in a street demonstration two years ago.
Six Klansmen and Nazis were
charged In the deaths of the demonstrators, but they were acquitted last
November after the jury had deliberated for 10 days.
In addition to its criticism of the police, the report also criticizes the local
prosecutors for their conduct of the case
at the trial, including approval of jurors
reportedly sympathetic to the defense.
It accuses the Justice Department of not
sufficiently pursuing charges of civil
rights violations against the gunmen.
The institute, based in Durham, N.C,
is a private, nonprofit organization that
monitors reports of violations of civil
liberties through terrorism and intimidation. It is scheduled to release its report at a news conference in Washington, D.C, tomorrow afternoon.
According to the report, the Greensboro police used a former Klan informer
for the Federal Bureau of Investigation
who "recruited and led Klansmen to the
attack on the Communist demonstrators."
Through the informer, Ed Dawson,
and others, the report said, the police
monitored the organization of the Communists' "Death-to-the-Klan" rally for
almost a month before it was held on
Nov. 3,1979, and were told two weeks before the rally that a large number of
Klansmen were "planning to disrupt"
it.
The reports cited evidence that police
cars drove past the Klan-Nazi rendezvous where rifles and shotguns were visibly displayed on a front lawn and that
the police had "watched and photographed" the formation of the nine-car
caravan of Klansmen.
'Everybody Had a Gun' j
In addition, the report said that officers were in constant radio contact with
police headquarters and with several of
the officers assigned to the march.
In the 17 minutes it took the caravan
to go from its formation point to the
rally, the report said, police units working on normal patrol duty In the rally
area were instructed to leave the vicinity-
The report included the statements
from the informant, Mr. Dawson, who is
quoted as saying he told the police early
on the morning of the shootings that
"there was 12 to 14 people at the house
and they had guns, everybody had a
gun."
Maj. Phillip Colvard, a spokesman for
the Police Department, said he could
not comment on the report because "We!
haven't seen the result of that investiga-'
tion."
But he said, "All the previous Investigations by those in authority .have
shown that the Police Department was
not involved in any type of conspiracy or
collusion with either the Klan or the
C.W.P."
The institute's report accused the
Guilford County District Attorney and
the trial prosecutors of "systematically
weakening the prosecution" of those accused of the murders.
A primary criticism was that the Dis-
tlct Attorney, Michael A. Schlosser, "allowed people to serve on the jury who
admitted they held such views as 'It's
less of a crime to kill Communists.' "
Among those selected for the jury was
Octavio Manduley, a Cuban refugee I
who, the report said, was an avowed |
anti-Communist and a member of the
20th of May Organization, a group opposed to President Fidel Castro of Cuba
and sponsored by the Central Intelligence Agency. It conducted the Bay of
Pigs invasion.
The institute said that Mr. Manduley,
who was elected the Jury foreman, was
one of five jurors who "expressed definite biases against Communists and/or
in favor of the Klan or Nazis."
Mr. Schlosser said "those charges are
not new" but that he would decline comment on the report until he had a chance
to read it.
Shortly before he resigned his position
earlier this year, H. M. Michoux Jr., the
United States Attorney in Greensboro,
recommended "strong decisive action"
from the Justice Department against
the Klansmen. The department has said
it is "studying the matter."
Julian Bond, a State Senator in Georgia who is president of the institute, said
he viewed the Justice Department's
"inaction" on that recommendation as
"more evidence that the Reagan Justice
Department is slow to act against Klan-
type terrorist activities and is reluctant
to strenuously intervene in such cases as
this where local officials systematically
abandon protection of their citizens and
promote an atmosphere of benign neglect toward racial violence."
William Bradford Reynolds, who
heads the Justice Department's civil
rights division, did not return a reporter's phone calls.
Mr. Bond said he was disturbed that
the police had followed the Klan caravan to the Communist rally in the predominantly black neighborhood "without dispatching a single officer to intercept it or warn its intended victims, but
their failure to alert the innocent families in the Morningside housing project
is inexcusable."
"I
