Bill Moyers investigates the facts and forces that led to the trial of Tom Metzger and his son, John Metzger, for their role in inciting neo-Nazi skinheads in Portland, Oregon, to murder the Ethiopian immigrant Mulugeta Seraw.
TRANSCRIPT
KENNETH MIESKE, aka “Ken Death,” Ex-Member, East Side White Pride; Co-Defendant: [demonstrating with the microphone] Here’s where his head was, right here. I swung and hit him right there.
MORRIS DEES, Southern Poverty Law Center, Chief Counsel for Plaintiffs: From upside his head?
KEN MIESKE: Yeah, right beside him. I told him, “Let go.”
MORRIS DEES: He hit the ground?
KEN MIESKE: He hit the ground.
PORTLAND NEWSCASTER: [voice-over] The crime took place here on Southeast 31st early Sunday morning. Three black men, all from Ethiopia, were sitting in this car, talking. When one left to head for his apartment, another car pulled up, three young white men jumped out and began beating him.
[In Court]
MORRIS DEES: Is this the taillight you knocked out of the car?
KEN MIESKE: Yes, it is.
MORRIS DEES: And you also knocked the entire back window out, didn’t you?
KEN MIESKE: Right.
MORRIS DEES: You knocked this side window out, didn’t you?
KEN MIESKE: Yeah, right.
MORRIS DEES: And Strasser ran on the other side with his steel-toed boots and kicked the other windows out, didn’t he?
KEN MIESKE: Right. Well, hold on. Are you going to show this? I did that, too.
MORRIS DEES: Oh, you did?
KEN MIESKE: Yeah, I did that right there.
MORRIS DEES: You hit it so hard there’s glass all the way up against the door on the other side, isn’t there?
KEN MIESKE: Well, yeah.
PORTLAND NEWSCASTER: [voice-over] Police say Mieske, Brewster and Strasser are members of East Side White Pride, the most violent group of skinheads in Portland.
[In Court]
MORRIS DEES: Kenneth Mieske walked up behind him. He took that baseball bat and he slapped him beside the head, full swing, a swing that had the force that would knock the baseball over the centerfield fence. And then, he hit the ground on his knees, probably unconscious. Mieske stood over him with that bat and stretched his legs out like this and he came down on him twice, just like this, with such a force it just took the whole top of his head off.
PORTLAND NEWSCASTER: [voice-over] Dead is 27-year-old Mulugeta Seraw. Seraw came to the U.S. seven years ago to attend Portland State University.
[In Court]
MORRIS DEES: Now, there’s an interesting thing about the plea of Mr. Mieske. He said, “I killed him for racial reasons.”
BILL MOYERS: I’m Bill Moyers. The three skinheads who beat Mulugeta Seraw to death pleaded guilty to murder and manslaughter and are now serving long prison terms, but the case didn’t end there. Evidence suggested the skinheads had been incited to commit their crimes by a hate group in Southern California, a group called White Aryan Resistance-WAR. One member told police that WAR had sent him to Portland to encourage the skinheads there to commit violence against non-whites.
This caused two civil rights groups — the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai Brith and the Southern Poverty Law Center in Alabama — to team up in a novel legal strategy. They brought a civil suit against WAR and they asked for a fine so large it would bankrupt the organization and force it out of business.
WAR, of course, argued back that they had nothing to do with the murder, that they didn’t send an agent to Portland to incite any violence and that, furthermore, what they write and say about other people, no matter how nasty, is freedom of speech guaranteed by the First Amendment.
In this broadcast, you’ll be seeing a portion of the nearly 40 hourís worth of trial footage taped by a cameraman appointed by the court. As the trial progresses, we’ll pause with some experts to analyze some key points. The trial raises some very basic questions of American life-about hate and hurt and about whether words can kill.
TOM METZGER, Founder, White Aryan Resistance: The white separatist movement will not be stopped in the puny town of Portland.
KEN MIESKE: We believe in fighting for our race and we’ll defend it to the death.
TOM METZGER: We’re in your colleges, we’re in your armies, we’re in your police forces. Stopping Tom Metzger’s not going to change what’s going to happen in this country now.
SKINHEAD: White power, kill all.
BILL MOYERS: [voice-over] Civil rights lawyer Morris Dees is Chief Counsel for the plaintiffs. The suit is being brought on behalf of the murdered man’s family-his uncle, father and young son. The main defendants, charged with wrongful death and conspiracy, are Tom Metzger, his 22-year-old son John and their organization, WAR. Dees is addressing a jury of 10 whites and two Asian-Americans. To preserve their anonymity and safety, the cameraman has been instructed not to show the jurors.
MORRIS DEES: [Day 1: Plaintiffs Opening Statement] But that evidence that was found led a trail right back to the young man sitting right here who, in the chain of command of his organization, works directly under his father. He is the Director of WAR Youth, a young man who his father corrupted just like he’s corrupted so many other young men by, when he was only eight years old, he had this child in the Ku Klux Klan, the Klan Youth, while his father was Grand Dragon for eight years or five years of the California Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. This young man, acting for his father, had set upon a course of action that led to the murder of my client.
Tom Metzger is a pathetic character. Mr. Metzger basically has been a failure in his life. He first chose politics. He has strong viewpoints and he wants to get those viewpoints across. I don’t know what makes him think like he does and I’m not sure the evidence will really point it out, but that viewpoint that he has of white supremacy and being afraid of anybody who’s not an Aryan-blond, blue-eyed, master race person — I don’t know. But he ran for office of the Congressman of California and he got trounced. He tried the Ku Klux Klan, not like most Klansmen try it. He set it up as a business, a business to make money.
Now, Mr. Metzger said he’s a small businessman. Well, he’s got one of the most unusual businesses in the United States, for that business is making money off of selling hate. In America, we have the right to hate, but we don’t have the right to hurt.
We’re going to ask you to return a large verdict in this case. We’re going to ask you to return a verdict so big that on the south border of the State of Oregon, there’s going to be a wall $10 million high that’s going to stop Tom Metzger from coming back in this good state. And it’s going to be so big, I hope, that it will give a warning to him, “Stay out of everybody’s state” and it’ll put him out of business.
BILL MOYERS: [voice-over] The Metzgers have decided not to hire a lawyer and are representing themselves.
TOM METZGER, Founder, White Aryan Resistance; Co-Defendant: [Day 1: Opening Statement] I want to tell you a few things about Tom Metzger. He lives in Fallbrook, California, a little unincorporated town — oh, I forgot to congratulate Mr. Dees. He is good. I’ve lived in Fallbrook, California for 23 years, been married 27 years, have six children and by the time I get back, I’ll have my first grandchild, hopefully. I’ve made what money I have with my TV shop, just a small shop on my property. Mr. Dees said that Tom Metzger is a failure. Well, that’s because most people in this country think of success as money. Half of them have been divorced three or four times, they don’t know where their kids are at, they got kids from several families. Well, I think I’m successful because I’ve only been married one time, I’ve never had to send my wife out to go through the drudgeries sometimes of the so-called “career” stuff. She’s always been home with the kids. Now, how in the hell and all your imagination do you think I am so stupid as to take skinheads, who cannot be organized-that- when we hear people say, “Skins are being organized,” after a very short while, we found out that’s impossible. These guys have their own ideas, they choose their own leaders, they change around, they move around. Nobody can organize skinheads unless skinheads organize themselves.
So I’d like White Aryan Resistance. It gets it right out front. I’m a white racial separatist. I believe in the struggle of the white race and, I can sit down with any black person, Asian person, anybody else and talk about it. We’ll fight it out right here. Whatever you decide, fine. It won’t make a bit of difference on what I do politically in the future because I live in a little house on a little street. WAR doesn’t have a big war chest. If I have to live in a trailer out there someplace in the hills or in a tent down by the salty sea, I’m still going to do exactly what I do now.
BILL MOYERS: [voice-over] An important piece of evidence connecting the Metzgers to the killing is this letter. John Metzger wrote it to introduce Dave Mazzella to a Portland skinhead, Ken Mieske, alias “Ken Death.”
Detective MICHAEL D. HEFLEY, Portland Police Department, Plaintiffs Witness: [reading] “East Side White Pride wanted to drop a line and let you know we would like to open up communications with your group. You’ll get a feel of how we work when you meet Dave Mazzella and Mike Gagnon soon. AYM’s been around for almost 10 years. We changed our name from White Student Union a few years back to the more militant AYM. We work with any pro-white anti-drug white group as long as they do not talk. Racial Regards, John Metzger.”
ELDEN ROSENTHAL, Plaintiff’s Co-Counsel: Were any sections of that letter underscored for emphasis?
MICHAEL D. HEFLEY: Yes, they were. The last sentence, “do” is underlined and “talk” is underlined.
BILL MOYERS: [voice-over] Dave Mazzella is Dees’ star witness. Mazzella joined the skinheads when he was 16 and soon became part of Metzger’s inner circle. At the time of the murder, he was already facing arrest for an earlier assault in California. After talking to police, he agreed to testify in the case against the Metzgers.
DAVE MAZZELLA, Ex-Vice President of Aryan Youth Movement, Plaintiff’s Witness: [Day 2] My full name is Alan David Mazzella. That’s M-A-Z-Z-E-L-L-A.
MORRIS DEES: In November 1988, Dave, when Mr. Seraw was killed, were you the Vice President of WAR’s youth division?
DAVE MAZZELLA: Yes, I was.
MORRIS DEES: In that capacity, did Tom and John Metzger instruct you to teach skinhead recruits to commit violent acts against blacks and Jews and other minorities?
DAVE MAZZELLA: Yes, they did.
MORRIS DEES: Did these instructions include the commission of physical violence?
DAVE MAZZELLA: Yes, they did.
MORRIS DEES: Were you sent to Portland by Tom and John Metzger in October 1988 to organize East Side White Pride and to work with a group called POWAR or POWAR?
DAVE MAZZELLA: Yes, I was.
MORRIS DEES: Now, David, while you were in Portland, did you teach and direct East Side White Pride members to commit violent acts against blacks and other minorities in the Portland area?
DAVE MAZZELLA: Yes, I did-several times, as a matter of fact.
MORRIS DEES: How did you become Vice President of the White Aryan Youth?
DAVE MAZZELLA: I was appointed Vice President by Tom Metzger and John Metzger in Connecticut back in 1987 when we were doing a talk show on the Sally Jessy Raphael Show.
MORRIS DEES: Plaintiffs Exhibit One, which has been shown to be a letter addressed to “Ken Death,” postmarked October 6, 1988 and it says that “when you get a feel of how we operate when you meet Dave Mazzell — did you know this letter was being sent?
DAVE MAZZELLA: Yes, I did and after “Ken Death” received it, he told me about it and we had a meeting-several meetings. In one of them, he took the letter to the meeting and he passed it around to a few people to read, you know, just-you know, verifying my position of who I was.
MORRIS DEES: Did you have an occasion, when you first got up here, to be with a group of East Side White Pride members in which you demonstrated the use of physical violence against a minority?
DAVE MAZZELLA: Yea. My first night here, we went to this place called the Rocky Butte area. And we went up there, there was about 10 or 15 of us and we had some alcohol with us. And there was a lot of other people. It’s a popular place for teenagers to go up there and drink.
And there was minorities up there, all kinds of people were up there. And we saw some minorities, a black person and we looked over there and I was drunk and I’m all, “Hey, there’s a nigger, I’m going to go get that nigger.” And I went over there and started beating him up and his friend was standing there and Mike Gagnon jumped in and he started beating him up. And then Mieske and several other people jumped in and then, we just started beating people up up there.
MORRIS DEES: You said, “Hey, there’s a nigger.” Is this type of an action to cause a situation that you had learned from Tom Metzger?
DAVE MAZZELLA: Yes, it was.
MORRIS DEES: Well, tell the jury exactly what Tom Metzger told you about how to provoke an incident.
DAVE MAZZELLA: Well, incidents-like he uses, you know, something like self-defense, he says, “Here’s-aggravate people.” That’s the biggest one right there is just aggravating them, like, you know-he tries to play it off like the way we dress, but that’s not-it’s just we go out and we see people, and say, “Hey,” you know, drive by and say, “Hey, nigger.” And they get pissed off and they flip us off and then we’ll go back and kick their ass and in our minds, we feel it was justified because they flipped us off, even though we started it, you know.
MORRIS DEES: Now-and this is what Tom Metzger explained to you that you ought to do?
DAVE MAZZELLA: Yes.
MORRIS DEES: When you agitated that black person at Rocky Butte, was that for the purpose of inciting violence?
DAVE MAZZELLA: Yeah. See, skinheads, it’s all about respect and disrespect and skinheads will only respect someone who’s violent and who will-can kick some ass.
Right after we left Rocky Butte, we were still hyped up from what happened and we went to this place called the Laurelhurst Park. And we were sitting around there and we saw a group of about 10 people coming out of the park. And I looked over there, and I’m all, “Hey, I’m going go check this out, see if these guys are white.”
And so, I walked up to this group of people and as soon as I got up to them, all these people, I’m all, “Is everybody here white?” And everyone’s all, “Yeah, we’re all white.” And I looked around, and I’m all “Are you sure you’re all white?” And they’re all, ”Yeah.”
And then, I saw this one guy, he didn’t look white and by this time, everyone else was coming over, who was with us, and I found this one guy. I’m all-I’m all, ”You’re not white.” And he’s all, “Yeah, I am.” I’m all, “Well, come out here in the light.” So I took this guy over to this trail and we stood out there and I’m all-I’m all, ”You’re not white.” He’s all, “No.” I’m all, “What’s your name?” And he’s all, “Romero.” and I’m all, “Romero what?” And he said, “Romero Cruz, like Santa Cruz.”
And about that time, I’m all, ”Well, why don’t you get” I’m all, I was looking at him. I’m all, ”You’re a liar.” And I’m all, “Why don’t you get down on your hands and knees and kiss my boot?” And he kind of hesitated and by that time, Ken Mieske was standing by me and he’s all, “You heard him. Get down on your hands and knees and kiss his boot.” So this guy, he got down on his hands and knees and I kicked him and-
MORRIS DEES: Now, at that time, were you the first person to inflict any injury on this-
DAVE MAZZELLA: Yes, I was.
MORRIS DEES: — dark-skinned individual?
DAVE MAZZELLA: Yes, I was.
MORRIS DEES: So, was that one way that you established yourself for Tom Metzger in this town?
DAVE MAZZELLA: Yes, it was. My first night here, it was like, you know, these guys-you know, they were sloppily organized and I wanted to set some examples and you know, basically direct them, you know, ’cause they had no direction. I wanted to basically give them some kind of direction to focus on.
MORRIS DEES: Dave, did you develop a loyalty to Tom Metzger when you were a young teenager?
DAVE MAZZELLA: See, the way Tom made it-you know, made me feel and a lot of other people, you know-basically, you know, we felt alienated from everything and everybody and it was whole different world once I entered Metzger’s world. It was like-it was-I’d walk down the street, you know, and I’d look at things.
I’d see blacks and they all looked like monkeys and they-I would look at Asians and they-you know, they looked, you know, disgusting or it was just like everything was just, you know-nothing looked real. They looked like, you know, bugs you could step on, you know, people, you know, that didn’t matter in this world.
And Metzger, you know, to me-I mean, I respected him a lot and he was like a second father to me because, as I was alienated-you know, being alienated from everything, you know, that I cared about, it caused me to get in trouble in school and with my family. And his organization and Metzger himself, you know, basically took the place of my father and my parents. I was willing to die for him and his beliefs and for WAR and I told that to hundreds of people, you know, that I was willing to die for what I believed in at the time.
MORRIS DEES: Have you had an occasion to hear Mr. Metzger on television talk shows?
DAVE MAZZELLA: Yes, I have and I was on a few of them, too.
MORRIS DEES: And those shows, where he’s talking to the public, does he use the word “nigger”?
DAVE MAZZELLA: No, he doesn’t. He has like a public front and a private front. And on the public, he’ll tell them one thing because if you’re like a salesman and you’re selling a product, you don’t want it to have any-you know, if it has a defect, you’re not going to say, “Well, this-you know, this has some problems with it.” You’re going to, you know, give them a line-you know, a line to sell what you’re selling and his was racism. And that’s what he’d do, you know, publicly on talk shows. He’d tone it down and in private, you know, he’d tell us, ”Well, good job and good going,” He just encouraged it, gave us more papers-“Keep up the good work, keep doing it.”
MORRIS DEES: Dave, I believe he got you on some of these talk shows, didn’t he?
DAVE MAZZELLA: Yeah, he got me on several of them. He —
MORRIS DEES: Tell the jury which ones you went on and, if you can remember, when.
DAVE MAZZELLA: OK. I believe in ’86, I went on A.M. San Francisco. In 1987, I went on Sally Jessy Raphael and that’s when I was appointed Vice President. In 1988, I went on the Morton Downey show. I was called by Tom to go on these ones-the Morton Downey show and the Oprah Winfrey Show — and then, I went on Race and Reason.
MORRIS DEES: So these television shows acted as a feeder to get members in?
DAVE MAZZELLA: Yes, they did.
MORRIS DEES: Now, back to Portland and this attack. You said you met with them and you talked to them about clash and bash and need for creating sporadic incidences. What’s this thing about building up the hunter instinct in white youth? What does Tom explain to you that meant?
DAVE MAZZELLA: Well, hunter-killer basically, you know, is kicking ass. I mean, that was always his word, you know, “Let’s kick some ass.” And hunter-killer, I mean, that’s just-that’s, like I said, it speaks for itself.
MORRIS DEES: Well, did Tom have some feeling that-did he express to you any feeling that white young youth, white males, were not aggressive like they maybe used to be in the past?
DAVE MAZZELLA: Yeah. He like-you know, he didn’t-he wanted-he didn’t want no wimps in his organization. You know, he didn’t want people that were weak or who’d break, you know, under pressure. He wanted people that, you know, could portray- you know, act out their part, you know, and that part was kicking some ass.
MORRIS DEES: [Day 3] I show you what’s been marked as Plaintiff’s Exhibit Number 36 and I believe that came out of a notebook that the police seized from you. Is that correct?
DAVE MAZZELLA: Yes.
MORRIS DEES: And I believe all that we did was just tear the page out and put it into evidence. And you described this as a drawing that you intended to submit to Tom. Under the bottom, it says, “Nigger, keep out,” and it has a person with a bullet hole going through the head.
DAVE MAZZELLA: Yes.
MORRIS DEES: Now, would you tell the jury who drew this, when they drew it and where they drew it?
DAVE MAZZELLA: That was drawn that night of the murder at Nick Heiss’s house.
MORRIS DEES: Who drew this?
DAVE MAZZELLA: Nick Heiss.
MORRIS DEES: Were you all sitting on the floor, around a table or what?
DAVE MAZZELLA: Around his coffee table.
MORRIS DEES: And who was sitting around that table while this was being drawn?
DAVE MAZZELLA: Brewster-Kyle Brewster, Steve Strasser and Ken Mieske.
MORRIS DEES: And Heiss, he was drawing it?
DAVE MAZZELLA: Yes.
MORRIS DEES: Were you there?
DAVE MAZZELLA: Yes, I was.
MORRIS DEES: Approximately how long before the murder was this drawing done?
DAVE MAZZELLA: I’d say about 10 to 15 minutes.
MORRIS DEES: All right, the time that this drawing was being done, with Mieske and Brewster and Strasser and yourself and Heiss and others sitting there, were you discussing anything about harming black people?
DAVE MAZZELLA: We were-we were talking about drawing some violent cartoons to send in-some violent pictures to send in to Tom Metzger, yes.
MORRIS DEES: And was there any discussion about the nature of the cartoon, the violence it depicted and who it was depicted on?
DAVE MAZZELLA: Oh, a’ lot of the guys were laughing about it, kind of, “Ha, ha, look at this,” and-
MORRIS DEES: And was this done at your direction?
DAVE MAZZELLA: Yes.
MORRIS DEES: Then the murder happened how long after that?
DAVE MAZZELLA: About 10 to 15 minutes.
MORRIS DEES:Your witness.
TOM METZGER: Thank you, Morris.
[Day 41] Good afternoon, Mr. Mazzella.
DAVE MAZZELLA: How are you doing, Mr. Metzger?
TOM METZGER: Tell the court roughly when you first met Tom or John Metzger, if you could recall.
DAVE MAZZELLA: Well, I met John in 1986, I believe, and I met you when I did the A.M. San Francisco show.
TOM METZGER: Did we beat anybody up when you were with us?
DAVE MAZZELLA: When we went on talk shows like A.M. San Francisco, we didn’t do things like that. That was a public front.
TOM METZGER: Well, after the show, did we go out and beat somebody up?
DAVE MAZZELLA: Nope.
TOM METZGER: Well, it sounds like you’re sayin’ we’re beatin’ people up all the time.
DAVE MAZZELLA: Occasionally.
TOM METZGER: Occasionally?
DAVE MAZZELLA: Yeah.
TOM METZGER: Well, I have a document in my hand-document in my hands that says that in four days in Portland, Oregon, you said that you beat up 80 people.
DAVE MAZZELLA: Close to that.
TOM METZGER: Eighty people in four days?
DAVE MAZZELLA: Close to that, yes.
TOM METZGER: And you beat up 80 people? Was there any charges filed? .
DAVE MAZZELLA: OK, there was-a couple of people who were assaulted made statements with the police, yeah.
TOM METZGER: That was a real reign of terror, huh?
DAVE MAZZELLA: Yes, it was.
TOM METZGER: And you’re stating I taught you how to do these things?
DAVE MAZZELLA: Yes.
TOM METZGER: Where did I teach you to do these things?
DAVE MAZZELLA: At your house.
TOM METZGER: At my house? How many times were you at my house, Mr. Mazzella?
DAVE MAZZELLA: I’ve been to your house several times.
TOM METZGER: Tell me approximately how many.
DAVE MAZZELLA: Quite a few. I used to go every weekend, when I lived down in —
TOM METZGER: Well, give me a number, a ballpark.
DAVE MAZZELLA: I’d say about 20, 20-25 times, 30 times.
TOM METZGER: Isn’t it a fact that you were at my house six to eight times total in the entire time I ever knew you?
DAVE MAZZELLA: That’s not true.
TOM METZGER: You’re under oath-
DAVE MAZZELLA: Uh huh.
TOM METZGER: — remember. What part of my house did I teach you to hurt and kill people?
DAVE MAZZELLA: In your living room.
TOM METZGER: The living room?
DAVE MAZZELLA: Allover your house. I mean-
TOM METZGER: All over my house, I taught you how to kill people?
DAVE MAZZELLA: Yeah, well, you didn’t put-
TOM METZGER: In the bathroom?
DAVE MAZZELLA: You didn’t put up a poster and say, “Shoot,” you know. You-you were more subtle about things.
TOM METZGER: Subtle?
DAVE MAZZELLA: Yeah.
TOM METZGER: Well, how subtle?
DAVE MAZZELLA: As you heard my statement before, I said when I told you about things, you said, “Well,” you know, ”you guys are doing a good job. Keep up the good work.” I mean, you didn’t have to say-
TOM METZGER: Well, what do you mean-go ahead, finish. I’m sorry. Go ahead.
MORRIS DEES: Your honor, ask him to let the witness finish the answer.
TOM METZGER: I’m sorry.
Judge ANCER L. HAGGERTY, Circuit Court of the State of Oregon: Let him finish.
DAVE MAZZELLA: I mean, you didn’t-you don’t, you know, put
up a poster and say, “Shoot,” you know. You do things a lot more discreetly.
TOM METZGER: Discreetly? In my living room?
DAVE MAZZELLA: Yes, cause you don’t trust that many people.
TOM METZGER: Was my wife there?
DAVE MAZZELLA: Yes. Your wife’s involved, too.
TOM METZGER: All my kids were there?
DAVE MAZZELLA: Quite a few of them, yes.
TOM METZGER: They’re all there?
DAVE MAZZELLA: Not all of them. Kind of makes it a little-
TOM METZGER: My wife’s there, my kids are all there, you’re there, we’re all there.
DAVE MAZZELLA: Uh huh.
TOM METZGER: Now, tell me how I taught you to kill people.
DAVE MAZZELLA: Through your literature. I passed out your papers.
TOM METZGER: Passed out papers?
DAVE MAZZELLA: Uh huh, and encouraged my friends around there to commit acts of violence.
TOM METZGER: You encouraged your friends to commit acts of violence?
DAVE MAZZELLA: Through your papers, yes. I was —
TOM METZGER: The ones you learned in my living room.
DAVE MAZZELLA: Yeah-and your living room, yeah. I was the direct link from your papers-
TOM METZGER: And all over my house.
DAVE MAZZELLA: Different parts of it, yeah.
TOM METZGER: OK. Did I teach you how to use a gun in the living room?
DAVE MAZZELLA: No.
TOM METZGER: Well, to your knowledge, do I have any skin-head boots?
DAVE MAZZELLA: No.
TOM METZGER: Did — did you ever see any baseball bats in my living room?
DAVE MAZZELLA: No.
TOM METZGER: Brass knuckles?
DAVE MAZZELLA: No.
TOM METZGER: Knives?
DAVE MAZZELLA: Besides the kitchen knives.
TOM METZGER: Well, how did I teach you to kill people and hurt people in that living room?
DAVE MAZZELLA: In that living room, it’s not what you-what was showed, it was what was said, things-not direct. They were more-more like brainwashing antics that said, you know, ”Well, that’s a good job.” We’d do something. We weren’t told not to do it, so we were left hanging, saying, “OK, well, let’s do it, then.”
TOM METZGER: Were you the Vice President of WAR?
DAVE MAZZELLA: I was the Vice President of the Aryan Youth Movement which was the same as WAR. It was operated by you.
TOM METZGER: I want you to think real careful now,’ for the record. You’re saying that I appointed you Vice President?
DAVE MAZZELLA: Yes.
TOM METZGER: Of the Aryan Youth?
DAVE MAZZELLA: Yes, you did, you and John both.
TOM METZGER: I appointed you Vice President of WAR?
DAVE MAZZELLA: No, Aryan Youth Movement.
TOM METZGER: Well, how could I do that? John is the head of Aryan Youth Movement.
DAVE MAZZELLA: No, that’s-that’s what it says in the papers, but in reality, he really doesn’t call any shots, to tell you the truth.
TOM METZGER: And you haven’t been charged in the case, civilly.
DAVE MAZZELLA: No, I haven’t.
TOM METZGER: Well, you were the guy that was supposedly beating up people.
DAVE MAZZELLA: Yeah, but it wasn’t my literature that-I didn’t kill anybody and I didn’t print the material that was passed out.
TOM METZGER: Yeah, but you said you got these people all ex-cited to go out and kill people.
DAVE MAZZELLA: Yeah, for the organization, to build respect for us and for your organization, yes.
TOM METZGER: Respect? What kind of respect is it to have a street fight and just kill somebody?
DAVE MAZZELLA: Well, that builds a big name. You make money off it. People know your-you know, your organization does something. I mean, a lot of people, you know, like that. A lot of people get off on it. A lot of your members get off on that, the violence, being able to walk around and say, “Yeah,” you know, “don’t mess with me because my organization beat someone to death.”
TOM METZGER: Isn’t that what’s going around in your head, Dave Mazzella?
DAVE MAZZELLA: No, that’s what’s going around-see, after the murder happened, I got out of jail, I came back up to Portland and I was here for about a month before I got-they got me on probation violation for the same charge. And while I was up here, everyone wanted to join up with WAR and East Side White Pride. That gave them a really big name.
TOM METZGER: [Day 5] I have no other questions.
Judge ANCER L. HAGGERTY: John Metzger?
JOHN METZGER, Director, White Aryan Youth; Co-Defendant: Dave, did I force you to take literature or did you take literature on your own?
DAVE MAZZELLA: I took it voluntarily.
JOHN METZGER: May I approach the witness, Your Honor?
Judge ANCER L. HAGGERTY: You may.
JOHN METZGER: Now, Dave, you said that, first of all, we sent you to Portland and you later said we suggested for you to go to Portland. Is this your handwriting in this letter here?
DAVE MAZZELLA: Yes, it is.
JOHN METZGER: Could you read this little paragraph here?
DAVE MAZZELLA: Right there? [reads] “I’m really glad I made-I made the choice to come here.”
JOHN METZGER: “Here” is Portland?
DAVE MAZZELLA: Yes, I believe so, if that’s-that’s where- yeah, I guess so.
JOHN METZGER: “I’m really glad I made the choice to come here” to Portland. You made the choice. You wrote the letter. First, it’s sending you. Second, it’s suggesting for you to come. Dave Mazzella, “I’m really glad I made the choice to come here.” That’s all the questions I have.
BILL MOYERS: [voice-over] Ken Mieske, alias “Ken Death,” has already pleaded guilty to the killing and is serving a life term in prison. Dees will now try to prove that Mieske and the other skinheads were organized and encouraged in their violence by Dave Mazzella, acting as the Metzgers’ agent.
MORRIS DEES: [Day 6] Mr. Mieske, do you have an alias name that you go by, in addition to Ken Mieske?
KEN MIESKE: Yes, I do..
MORRIS DEES: Sir?
KEN MIESKE: Yes, I do..
MORRIS DEES: Would you please tell the jury what that is?
KEN MIESKE: “Ken Death.”
MORRIS DEES: You are a defendant in this litigation. Have you chosen not to stay in the courtroom? Is that a voluntary choice on your part?
KEN MIESKE: Yes, it is a voluntary choice on my part.
MORRIS DEES: Do you understand that you are a defendant in this lawsuit-
KEN MIESKE: Yes, I do.
MORRIS DEES: — and that you have previously given a deposition on April 9, 1990?
KEN MIESKE: Yes, I do.
MORRIS DEES: Your Honor, I’d like to approach the witness, please.
Judge ANCER L. HAGGERTY: You may.
MORRIS DEES: I show you what’s been marked as Plaintiffs Exhibit One, with an accompanying folder which contains an envelope, and ask you if you would look at that, please. Look at that envelope and tell the jury if that was the-your correct address on October 6, 1988.
KEN MIESKE: Repeat that again?
MORRIS DEES: Tell the jury if the address on the envelope was your correct address on October 6,1988.
KEN MIESKE: This is an address that I was staying at. It wasn’t my address, if that’s what you want to hear.
MORRIS DEES: Yes.
KEN MIESKE: It wasn’t my address.
MORRIS DEES: Whose address was it?
KEN MIESKE: It was my girlfriend’s.
MORRIS DEES: And whose home was that?
KEN MIESKE: Her parents’.
MORRIS DEES: Did you stay there most of the time?
KEN MIESKE: About half and half, there and this other pad.
MORRIS DEES: Prior to my taking your deposition and showing you a copy of this letter at your deposition, in April of 1990, had you seen that letter before?
KEN MIESKE: I vaguely remember seeing it from the past. You know, I was getting a lot of mail at-you know, between then and now, so, you know, I vaguely remember that letter.
MORRIS DEES: I’m giving this to Mieske and ask the Clerk that she open this original and provide it to. the witness.
KEN MIESKE: Actually, this is a letter my girlfriend had set aside with a bunch of other letters, if I remember right.
MORRIS DEES: What, now?
KEN MIESKE: I said, this is a letter that my-I told you my girlfriend Julie set aside at the time, when I was out on the road with the band.
MORRIS DEES: And did you tell me, when I took your deposition, that you had never read that letter befo.re?
KEN MIESKE: Yes, I did.
MORRIS DEES: Is that the truth today or you want to change your testimony?
KEN MIESKE: Well, I vaguely-you know, now that, you know, that I’ve thought about it, I did see it, but I don’t-you know, I vaguely remember reading it. Like I said, I’ve gotten a lot of mail, you know, between then and now, so, you know, you can’t expect me to remember every letter I read, you know, between here and 1988, sir.
MORRIS DEES: Yes-in fact, didn’t you take this letter to the East Side White Pride skinhead meeting and show it around to everybody there because you was proud of getting a letter from John Metzger?
KEN MIESKE: I probably took a bunch of letters over there.
MORRIS DEES: Did you take this letter, Exhibit One?
KEN MIESKE: I don’t-I don’t recall, Mr. Dees.
MORRIS DEES: Mr. Mieske, did you have an occasion in October of 1988 to meet Dave Mazzella?
KEN MIESKE: Yes, I did.
MORRIS DEES: Had you met him before?
KEN MIESKE: No, I hadn’t.
MORRIS DEES: Didn’t you tell me on your deposition that he came directly to your house-“He had just got up here and he pulled in my driveway”?
KEN MIESKE: Right.
MORRIS DEES: Where’d he come from?
KEN MIESKE: I’m not sure-somewhere from California.
MORRIS DEES: California? Now, when he came in your house, did he make a telephone call?
KEN MIESKE: Yeah.
MORRIS DEES: And who did he make the telephone call to?
KEN MIESKE: Tom Metzger.
MORRIS DEES: Tom Metzger? Isn’t it a fact that Dave Mazzella put you on the telephone so that you could talk to Tom Metzger?
KEN MIESKE: I told you I said hello to him.
MORRIS DEES: Sir?
KEN MIESKE: I said I said hello to him.
MORRIS DEES: Oh, you did say you got on the telephone.
KEN MIESKE: Yes. Yes.
MORRIS DEES: And you said hello to Mr. Metzger?
KEN MIESKE: Yes.
MORRIS DEES: So that’s how you know that it was Mr. Metzger?
KEN MIESKE: I didn’t know who he was talking to.. Dave just handed me the phone and said, “Say hello to this guy,” so I said hello.
MORRIS DEES: You say anything else to him?
KEN MIESKE: That’s it.
MORRIS DEES: Mr. Metzger say anything to you?
KEN MIESKE: Just said, “Hello, how are you doing?”
MORRIS DEES: And that ended it?
KEN MIESKE: That’s it.
MORRIS DEES: Sir?
KEN MIESKE: That’s it.
MORRIS DEES: And he didn’t tell you that he had sent Dave Mazzella to organize the East Side White Pride and to kind of moderate be-tween a fight going on between your skinhead group and the POWAR skinhead group?
KEN MIESKE: No.
MORRIS DEES: He didn’t say anything like that?
KEN MIESKE: No.
MORRIS DEES: He didn’t say that he wanted you working with Dave Mazzella at the time?
KEN MIESKE: No, he didn’t.
MORRIS DEES: Well, at the time, you knew Dave Mazzella was Vice President of the WAR Youth, didn’t you?
KEN MIESKE: Not really, not Vice President. I knew he-you know, I’d seen him on TV. I knew who Mazzella was. I seen him on Sally Raphael or something like that.
MORRIS DEES: And he was identified as Vice President of the Aryan Youth Movement, wasn’t he?
KEN MIESKE: Not that I recall.
MORRIS DEES: Well, let me get back to this. Didn’t you know that he
was Vice President of the Aryan Youth Movement?
KEN MIESKE: Yeah, when he got up here, yeah.
MORRIS DEES: When he got up here?
KEN MIESKE: Yeah.
MORRIS DEES: OK, Now —
KEN MIESKE: That’s when he told me, when got up here.
MORRIS DEES: All right. And then, you knew that John Metzger was Director or President of the Aryan Youth Movement, didn’t you?
KEN MIESKE: I didn’t know who John Metzger was at the time.
MORRIS DEES: Well, I guess you knew that the Aryan Youth Movement was a part of WAR, didn’t you?
KEN MIESKE: Yeah.
MORRIS DEES: Sir?
KEN MIESKE: Yeah.
MORRIS DEES: You knew that, didn’t you?
KEN MIESKE: Right.
MORRIS DEES: It was its youth division, wasn’t it?
KEN MIESKE: Yeah, after he explained it to me.
MORRIS DEES: All right. And who explained this, Mazzella?
KEN MIESKE: Yeah.
MORRIS DEES: Now, did Dave Mazzella come to East Side White Pride meetings for the purpose of educating East Side White Pride members about WAR?
KEN MIESKE: He — I recall he only joined in one meeting.
MORRIS DEES: Only came to one meeting?
KEN MIESKE: Yeah. He was stood outside all the other ones.
MORRIS DEES: Just came one time? Is that what you say?
KEN MIESKE: He was present at one or towards the — I think on the last one.
MORRIS DEES: Was this the meeting that took place on the day that Seraw was killed?
KEN MIESKE: Yeah, I believe so.
MORRIS DEES: So that meeting would have been the 12th of November 1988?
KEN MIESKE: Correct.
MORRIS DEES: And you’re telling this jury that he never came to any other East Side White Pride meeting or organized or held a meeting himself for East Side White Pride members to come to before that?
KEN MIESKE: No, he didn’t and he didn’t organize nothin’ [sic] — to make that clear for the record.
MORRIS DEES: Now, tell the jury, if you would, what you talked to Tom and John about organizing skinhead units up and down the coast of-
KEN MIESKE: I don’t think I talked to them about that. I think I mentioned this in this letter here, if that’s what you’re referring to.
BILL MOYERS: [voice-over] Four months after the murder, Mieske wrote from his jail cell to another imprisoned skinhead that he was still true to his cause.
MORRIS DEES: Look on page four of the letter.
KEN MIESKE: I explain that everybody should unite instead of fight. That’s basically what I’m trying to say.
MORRIS DEES: OK. Did you use the number of 300 chapters of skin-heads that could be organized?
KEN MIESKE: That’s what I said.
MORRIS DEES: All right. And under what name would these chapters be organized?
KEN MIESKE: AYM.
MORRIS DEES: The Aryan Youth Movement, right? And didn’t you state in this letter this organizational plan, for example-
KEN MIESKE: This is-this is-hold on.
MORRIS DEES: Sir?
KEN MIESKE: This was just an idea I had.
MORRIS DEES: I understand.
KEN MIESKE: You know what I’m saying? It was not like it’s — it was just a thought.
MORRIS DEES: Just a thought?
KEN MIESKE: Yeah.
MORRIS DEES: That you expressed to this other skinhead in this letter, right?
KEN MIESKE: Right.
MORRIS DEES: Well now, didn’t you say in there that, [reading] “In Portland, it would be the Portland Chapter of the Aryan Youth Movement; in Chicago, it would be the Chicago chapter of the Aryan Youth Movement”? Didn’t you state that, ”Why have 300 different gangs when we could be one organization through the whole country?” You stated that, didn’t you?
KEN MIESKE: Yeah …
MORRIS DEES: In fact, you went on to state that “We can be one giant fist to slam down against ZOG and make ZOG really mad.”
KEN MIESKE: Right.
MORRIS DEES: Now, what is ZOG?
KEN MIESKE: The Zionist Occupational Government.
MORRIS DEES: And does Tom have information about the “Zionist Occupation Government” in the material that you read that he sent you?
KEN MIESKE: I’ve known about ZOG since I was a little kid this tall.
MORRIS DEES: Well, tell the jury what ZOG is.
KEN MIESKE: It’s a basic form of Jewish government.
MORRIS DEES: Let me show you Plaintiffs Exhibit 13 and ask you if you can identify this?
KEN MIESKE: This is a song.
MORRIS DEES: Is that in your handwriting?
KEN MIESKE: Yeah.
MORRIS DEES: And was that taken by the police out of your room when they searched your room?
KEN MIESKE: Yeah. This was taken out of a bunch of lyrics I had.
MORRIS DEES: All right. Now, why don’t you read that to the jury for us?
KEN MIESKE: No, I’m not going to read this. This has nothing to do with the case. [raising his voice] This has nothing to — this has nothing to do with this case.
MORRIS DEES: All right. Your Honor, may I read it to the jury?
Judge ANCER L. HAGGERTY: You may read it.
MORRIS DEES: [reading] Victims all around me / I feel nothing but hate / Bashing their head is / Is my only trade / Senseless violence is the only thing I know / Piles of corpses never ending watch them grow / Kill my victims for pleasure and for fun / Beat them over the head, shoot them with my gun / Line them up against the wall / Shoot them down and watch them die I 1love to hear the agony / They vomit, scream and cry. / Senseless violence is my favorite game / If everyone dies, / am not to blame / Burn their smelly corpses into the ground / I will make sure nobody is to be found.
KEN MIESKE: This song right here takes after a movie.
MORRIS DEES: It does?
KEN MIESKE: Yeah, it does.
MORRIS DEES: And that’s in your handwriting.
KEN MIESKE: That’s in my handwriting. Somebody-
MORRIS DEES: And that was found in your room.
KEN MIESKE: Huh?
MORRIS DEES: And that was found in your room.
KEN MIESKE: Are you trying to say I write — I wrote this song?
MORRIS DEES: I don’t know. This is in your handwriting, isn’t it?
KEN MIESKE: It’s in my handwriting. I just copied it down.
MORRIS DEES: No further questions.
KEN MIESKE: So, whoa, whoa, whoa. What are you trying to say here?
[Roundtable Discussion]
BILL MOYERS: Dan Levitas, what makes a Mazzella and a Mieske? Who becomes a skinhead?
DANIEL LEVITAS, Executive Director, Center for Democratic Renewal: Well, there’s no one psychological profile or single reason that leads young white youth to join the skinhead movement today. There are a lot of factors. I think. Mazzella mentioned his alienation and that’s one of the things we see throughout the skinhead movement, the 3,000 or so skinheads in the country today, their profound sense of alienation, of lack of a future. This is the first generation of young white youth that really has less than an even chance of doing better than their parents did in an economic sense.
NORMAN SIEGEL, Executive Director, New York Civil Liberties Union: I think that they feel, at least today, that the last 25 years, government policies have been helping people of color. They think that, in some instances, the blacks are getting it all. I think it’s totally distorted, but there’s that anger because they think that pro-grams like affirmative action are hurting them and they don’t have a stake anymore. I think they feel powerless.
BILL MOYERS: Mari Matsuda, watching Ken Mieske “Death” on that screen a moment ago, did you have a sense that he could hurt you?
MARI J. MATSUDA, Professor, UCLA School of Law: The feeling I got in watching this young man is that he is a product of our culture and that we have to ask what it is in our culture that’s producing people like this. The numbers of people that might go out and kill another person with a baseball bat might be relatively small, but the numbers of people that will engage in speech that’s Asia-bashing, for instance, or that’s homophobic or anti-Semitic, those numbers are quite large. You know, in the circles that I move in — primarily in the academy and among lawyers — I hear, unfortunately, those kinds of remarks all the time-in a cleaned-up and more sophisticated version, but they exist nonetheless and I think that creates a receptivity among these young people to these ideas.
BILL MOYERS: Well, how do we define a hate group?
DANIEL LEVITAS: Those group that-founded on the principles of white supremacy, of anti-Semitism, of racial supremacy. In the United States today, there are 25,000 active members of organized hate groups, everything from the traditional Nazi organizations through the Ku Klux Klan which, by the way, only numbers some 5,500 today in this country. So you’ve got at least 20,000 or so others that are part of groups like the skinhead movement in the Midwest and the farm belt-rural organizations like the Posse Comitatus that were active in the early 1980’s — all these groups that believe in anti-Semitic international Jewish conspiracy, preach race hatred and practice violence. That’s how I would define a hate group.
BILL MOYERS: Who finances them? Where do they get their money?
DANIEL LEVITAS: Well, there’s no real mystery to that, either, in fact. Many of these organizations get their funds from the same sources that other social movement organizations earn their money. As we’ve seen with Tom Metzger and the experience there in the Portland tri-al, sales of literature, newsletters, “free will donations,” occasional wealthy individuals or small business owners that may give them money, running for-profit business enterprises on the side. Many of these organizations are run on something of a shoestring and the people who operate them are somewhat hand-to-mouth.
BILL MOYERS: But do you think groups like this are truly a threat to our safety, to our liberty?
RICHARD BROOKHISER, Senior Editor, “National Review”: Well, I think we ought to contextualize this just a little hit. And I don’t mean at all to minimize what they’re doing today and it may be true that we have more of them now than we had 20 or 30 years ago. Certainly, if we go back 70 years, in 1924 at the Democratic Convention in that year, a guy sought the Democratic presidential nomination. His name was William Gibbs McAdoo and he was a son–in-law of Woodrow Wilson and he almost got it. And he was the pro-Klan candidate at that time. The Klan in the 20’s had, I think, two million members. It was a huge organization. The guy-we’re not talking about Tom Metzger winning a congressional nomination in the Democratic Party, which he did in 1980. This was a guy who came this close to getting the Democratic presidential nomination and he was the-if not the pro-Klan candidate, he was the anti-anti-Klan candidate. And for that to be a comparable thing today, you’d be talking about Tom Metzger debating Tom Harkin and Clinton and Wilder. I mean, you-
BILL MOYERS: So that is not as serious, then?
RICHARD BROOKHISER: Well, not as serious as 65 or 70 years ago.
DANIEL LEVITAS: [off camera] But we’re talking about David Duke here also and we could-
NORMAN SIEGEL: I disagree at that period you’re talking about. We have a screwed-up country. I agree with you. We’ve got racism, we’ve got homophobia, we have anti-Semitism, we have sexism. We’ve got a lot of “isms” out there and I think it’s a threat. I think that if it’s 4,500 or 25,000, it’s a threat.
And what we have to do is develop some comprehensive plans be-cause there is an absence of leadership because people don’t want to confront the bigots all across the board. And what history teaches us is that if you’re silent and you don’t have comprehensive plans con-fronting the bigots, they take that silence and inaction as a signal of approval or condoning their activity and they get bolder because they’re bullies. But they’re cowards in certain ways and that kind of climate where we don’t come after them and confront them and try to change the climate just makes them bolder.
RANDOLPH SCOTT McLAUGHLIN, Professor of Law, Pace University: I think there’s an absence of leadership on these issues at the top — a complete absence of leadership — and that leads to a vacuum and into that vacuum steps Tom Metzger, steps the Klan and deals with these young people who, as Dan said earlier, really don’t have a future. They don’t have a future. They can’t integrate them-selves into the society at large because they don’t have an education. They have no future here, so they need a leader figure, someone to look up to, someone to explain to them why they’re in their situation and then someone to blame for their situation.
CATHARINE A. MacKINNON, Professor of Law, University of Michigan: There is one dimension to this I’d like to add and that is, in that song, it was noted that he got pleasure out of it. I think pleasure is a term that should be taken a little bit seriously here in terms of what happens inside a person when they think of themselves and imagine themselves as being dominant, join a large, powerful group, that they get control over other people, that elevates them above other people; that, when we think about hatred, we don’t think about getting pleasure out of hating, but that’s what they said they got out of it.
BILL MOYERS: We have to move on in the discussion — there’s more of the trial — so when we return after this short PBS break, we’ll hear John Metzger cross-examine the convicted murderer and hear Metzger attempt to disprove Morris Dee’s case.
[In Court]
JOHN METZGER: [cross-examining] Mr. Mieske, did John Metzger ever tell you to hurt or cause violence to anyone, written or oral or otherwise?
KEN MIESKE: No.
JOHN METZGER: Did John Metzger teach you violence at all?
KEN MIESKE: No, he didn’t.
JOHN METZGER: Did you ever see John Metzger personally before November 13th, the night of the death of Seraw?
KEN MIESKE: No, I didn’t.
JOHN METZGER: When was the first time you did see John Metzger?
KEN MIESKE: [smirking] On Geraldo.
JOHN METZGER: Before the night of the fight and the death, what was the contact that you had with John Metzger, in the sense that did you write a letter to John Metzger or did he write a letter to you?
KEN MIESKE: I believe he wrote a letter to me.
JOHN METZGER: Did you have any more contact after that?
KEN MIESKE: Uh-
JOHN METZGER: In the sense of before the fight?
KEN MIESKE: No, I didn’t.
JOHN METZGER: So John Metzger never wrote you another letter?
KEN MIESKE: Uh-No, he didn’t.
JOHN METZGER: Did John Metzger ever call, say, a house you were staying in and say, “Can I talk to Ken Mieske?”
KEN MIESKE: Nope.
MORRIS DEES: [off camera] What was your answer?
KEN MIESKE: No. [smirking]
JOHN METZGER: Did John Metzger ever tell you to buy baseball bats?
KEN MIESKE: No, he didn’t.
JOHN METZGER: In — that one letter, you stated that I did write you. Did John Metzger tell you to buy anything or to act in a certain way?
KEN MIESKE: He didn’t tell me to buy anything. He told me to, if I read correct-If I just got done readin’ the letter that Morris gave me yesterday. It states that-to keep our mouths shut in any case of any events that happen. That’s it.
JOHN METZGER: Did it seem like the letter to you, since it was the first letter and the only letter written to you by John Metzger-did it seem like an introductory-introductory letter?
KEN MIESKE: Kind of-like more like a correspondence letter.
JOHN METZGER: When you scanned or just briefly read in some sections, if you did, did you feel that the papers were inciting you and encouraging you to go out and just attack randomly people?
KEN MIESKE: No. If that was the case, I’ve watched so many horror movies, you know. Why wouldn’t I dress up like Jason and go out and start sawing people up with a chainsaw? No, it’s not true at all.
BILL MOYERS: [voice-over] Walter Hatch, a reporter for the Seattle Times, interviewed John Metzger just three weeks after the death of Seraw. He describes that interview in a deposition videotaped in Seattle.
WALTER HATCH, Reporter, “Seattle Times,” Plaintiff’s Witness: [Day 3] Deposition taped August 23, 1990]1 think — I think the story makes this clear, that what he told me was that they had a member of their organization, a Mr. Dave Mazzella, who had gone to Portland to organize skinheads.
MORRIS DEES: Did you ask him what, if any, title or position did Dave Mazzella have in his organization?
WALTER HATCH: Yes.
MORRIS DEES: And what did he say?
WALTER HATCH: Vice President.
MORRIS DEES: And finally, Mr. Hatch, did Mr. Metzger have an occasion to tell you his opinion on skinheads?
WALTER HATCH: We were talking about skinheads and he said, “The skinheads these days are deadlier than the skinheads of two years ago. They’re more disciplined, more ‘kosher,’ if you will.”
MORRIS DEES: And are you reading a direct quote that you quoted him from that interview?
WALTER HATCH: That’s right.
BILL MOYERS: [voice-over] John Metzger, who joined the Klan at the age of eight, now heads the youth division of WAR.
MORRIS DEES: [Day 6] Mr. Metzger, say this murder happened on the-November the 12th. For the two years prior to November 12th, what role, if any, did you play in working with skinheads in the United States, in whatever capacity you had with WAR, WAR Youth or whatever?
JOHN METZGER: Well, in particular to my position with the role of skinheads was they were a certain segment of white youth that had come to us that were interested and they always came after us. I didn’t go hunting them down. And they just came and they wanted to work with us or they wanted an alternative opinion to some of the other groups on campus. They wanted an alternate-a different opinion of-on race, things of that such. So they got in touch with me and often, I wrote back, generally once and then a lot of times, I’d never hear from them again.
MORRIS DEES: Well, you kind of pat yourself on the back a little bit for organizing them, don’t you?
JOHN METZGER: I do.
MORRIS DEES: .In fact, on June 13, 1988, did you not tell Katherine Bishop of The New York Times that ”We’ve been working with them” — skinheads — “for two years. I pat myself on the back a little bit for organizing them. We’ve been able to influence them and fine-tune their perceptions.” Did you say that?
JOHN METZGER: Yes, I did say that.
MORRIS DEES: And did you also say, ”We are filling a void in their lives”?
JOHN METZGER: Yes, I said that because here, again, they felt that there was a void. They would-in particular, since you’re talking about skinheads, that-particularly that group throwaway white youths would get in touch and they felt that-I do feel I was filling a void. They-a lot of their concept-their perspectives of the world, I think, they needed change and suggestions and opinions.
MORRIS DEES: But did you ever give interviews where you discussed with white youth — skinheads, Aryan youth — any subjects that might assist them in becoming more deadly?
JOHN METZGER: Here again, you’re using this word “deadlier” in a certain-certain category and I’ve repeatedly told you what I meant by deadlier-getting their act together.
MORRIS DEES: Well, it’s your word and I just want you to tell the jury what you may have told skinheads over that two-year period that we’re talking about here that made them more “deadlier” and “fine-tuning their perceptions.”
JOHN METZGER: OK. One fact was-like Mr. Mazzella said, was I enlightened them and others on their rights with the police, so now, they’re more deadlier because the police can’t pick on-on them anymore and if they ask for a photograph, they could just deny it instead of thinking they have to give it. They’re more deadlier in the sense that a lot of-they’ve got a reputation that, you know, when they’re attacked, they’re going to fight back in self-defense and that a lot of them are throwaway kids that are pretty intense. And they’re going to hurt them, you know, in self-defense. And a lot of gangs backed off of them, so a lot of people, after a while, understood what the skinhead scene was.
MORRIS DEES: Well, you used the word “self-defense.” Is this some-thing that you work with skinheads on, is teaching them about self-defense?
JOHN METZGER: Not whatsoever.
MORRIS DEES: You did not-
JOHN METZGER: Well, self-defense, in the sense of showing them techniques to defend yourself, no. I’ve never really myself done much research on anything like that.
MORRIS DEES: Isn’t one of the devices that you and your father teach is that if somebody is provoked into attacking you or attacks you in some way, that you should go 10 times further, destroy them, just whatever it takes to get rid of them-poke their eyeballs out? You ever tell them that?
JOHN METZGER: Well, I think that any legitimate person in the world, if they’re attacked for no reason at all — especially in our case because we were racial and we had our own thoughts or at least, we thought we had the right to think them at the time — that, sure, when someone attacks you, make sure they don’t come at you again. That’s covered by the California Penal Code or any other code within the United States, self-defense.
MORRIS DEES: Let’s get down to the bottom and I want to ask you if you stated this to this person. [reading] The Interviewer: “They are saying if someone attacks white youth, in general, first, that we have every obligation and every-well, every right to attack back with everything we’ve got.” And was this your answer?
JOHN METZGER: Yes, that’s —
MORRIS DEES: Let me read it —
JOHN METZGER: OK.
MORRIS DEES: — and then you tell me if this is your answer. [reading]
“Not every right-not only every right, every obligation, but you can go 10 times further. We are like our forefathers, our ancestors. We are like Viking berserkers. If someone attacks you, they are trying to kill you and they are trying to hurt you, everything you believe in. And when you’re doing right or when you’re not doing anything and someone attacks you, go for it. Go for gusto. Destroy ’em, anything you have to do. Poke the eyeballs out. Beat the hell out of them. Who cares what you have to do? Defeat. I’d rather be tried by 12 than carried by six.” Now, did you put that out over that line?
JOHN METZGER: Yes, that was in a-the question was asked and that is covered by the California Penal Code.
MORRIS DEES: Well, did you tell Walter Hatch, [reading] “If they went in a baseball bat and whomping them, then obviously, that’s not right, but if they were defending themselves, there was nothing wrong with that”? Did you say that?
JOHN METZGER: What had happened was —
MORRIS DEES: Well, just-did you say that, first?
JOHN METZGER: Well, first of all, let me clear that up. That was —
Judge ANCER L. HAGGERTY: Well, you have acknowledge whether or not you made the statement.
JOHN METZGER: OK, let me —
Judge ANCER L. HAGGERTY: Then you can clarify it, if you desire.
JOHN METZGER: OK. Yes, I did say that-yes, it’s in quotes. I did say that. They were talking-from what I recall, of course, of this article, Walter Hatch was talking to me about the incident up here or up-yes, up here in Portland and he wanted my opinion and I said, quote, “I know one thing. I don’t dare listen to the media to get an accurate picture of what happened. If they” — they, meaning Ken Mieske, Kyle Brewster and the others — “went in there with a baseball bat and whomping on people, obviously, that’s not right, but if they were defending themselves, then there’s nothing wrong with that.” I think that’s a very standard-
MORRIS DEES: I understand that, but did you understand that this man was beaten over the head three times with a baseball bat and he was unarmed. Did you understand that?
JOHN METZGER: At that time, I had gotten quite a bit of calls from the news media, wanting my opinion, and I don’t base, like some people may do or you, but I don’t base my opinion on what the facts are in the newspaper ’cause, similar to this case, it’s — they’re-most of them are a big joke, a total twisted-
MORRIS DEES: Well, let’s look at this particular thing here. It talks about a “new phenomenon across America.” Can you tell me, did you cause this-it says it’s called “bashing-a sport in which hunting parties of white youth seek out non-white individuals and break their bones.” Now, were you aware that this was in the educational material Mr. Mazzella was using to teach with.
JOHN METZGER: Sure. I was with Greg Withrow when he put that out. I didn’t know exactly if that was happening or not. I’ve never been involved in anything like that. I didn’t believe it. See, I don’t necessarily-see, I may be against something, but I’m not going to be like some people do in the world and prohibit freedom of speech.
MORRIS DEES: Now, in this issue of the Aryan Youth paper that you wrote and admit distributing-
JOHN METZGER: Yes.
MORRIS DEES: — it says, “White man’s civilization has been declining for many years, but through the turbulent and bloody horrors that came, the white man’s natural instinct to survive reappeared. Violence, along with intelligence and unity were soon the white man’s only avenue of escape from the cesspool of non-white hordes that were outnumbering white people around the world.” Now, tell the jury, if you would, who were these “non-white hordes”?
JOHN METZGER: This is a fictitious story that I had wrote and, of course, it’s mentioned in there, 1991, and this was put out in Nineteen, I believe, Eighty-eight, so it’s obvious that it’s fictitious and it was just my general feelings of a lot of different things at the time.
MORRIS DEES: It was kind of like the Turner diaries, wasn’t it? It was like a little recipe of how white people-uh, people could maintain their identity and destroy and kill non-white people.
JOHN METZGER: You’re taking that completely out of context, like the other charge there. I think the jurors would have a lot and the court, for that matter, would have a lot different opinion if you-if we were able to read the whole paper.
MORRIS DEES: Well, if the jury will have it in the jury room and you can ask yourself any questions you want to about it and your father. I’m interested in the parts that go to the core of this case.
JOHN METZGER: OK.
MORRIS DEES: These “non-white hordes” is what I want you to tell this jury who you’re directing the attention of the reader of this to. Was it Asian-Americans? Is that the “non-white horde”?
JOHN METZGER: I was directing that at quite a few different people, even people within our own movement that I didn’t care for-
MORRIS DEES: Well, let’s stop and list those people. Would they be black people?
JOHN METZGER: Non-white hordes obviously are people who are not white, so it could cover anything that was not white.
MORRIS DEES: Now, I don’t want to be personal, but there are people who are Jewish who are-look white to me. Are they part of this “non-white horde”?
JOHN METZGER: Yes.
MORRIS DEES: What about Spanish people?
JOHN METZGER: I would have to take a look at their ancestry, ’cause we don’t recognize national boundaries as a racial makeup of that country. There’s a lot of white Spaniards.
MORRIS DEES: But [unintelligible] — pardon me, sir.
JOHN METZGER: Excuse me. There’s a lot of white Spaniards.
MORRIS DEES: What I’m trying to get here is that you have written material, this educational material for young people to read and people like Mr. Mazzella to teach from and you direct the attention to a “cesspool.” Cesspool-you know what that is, don’t you?
JOHN METZGER: Yes.
MORRIS DEES: That’s where excrement goes in a hole in the ground. You know that, don’t you?
JOHN METZGER: Oh, yes.
MORRIS DEES: And you know that “cesspool of non-white hordes” — you wrote this, didn’t you?
JOHN METZGER: Oh, yes.
MORRIS DEES: Back on the 3rd of December 1988, before this lawsuit and before any allegations that Mr. Mazzella was your agent or recruiter, you admitted you had a conversation with Walter Hatch and I’m going to read you his statement. “If local skinheads re-quest his help, Metzger said he would send Mazzella or another organizer to Seattle to repeat the success in Portland.” Just tell me, yes or no, did you tell Mr. Hatch that-yes or no.
TOM METZGER: Your Honor, objection. Is that in quotes?
Judge ANCER L. HAGGERTY: I don’t know if it is or not, Mr. Metzger. Is it in quotes, Mr. Dees?
MORRIS DEES: No, it’s just part of the story, Your Honor. It says you said it. I just want to know, did you tell him that?
JOHN METZGER: Here again, like I stated before, there are no quotes here. “John Metzger, the young Neo-Nazi who is organizing an all-night vigil” — I didn’t do that at all.
Judge ANCER L. HAGGERTY: Excuse me. Mr. Metzger. If you understand the question, Counsel’s entitled to your answer as to did you make the statement to Mr. Hatch.
JOHN METZGER: I deny it on the grounds that I don’t have Walter Hatch’s notes, which he refused to bring into court to collaborate this. I’ve had-the reason why I won’t answer this is be-cause I’ve been misquoted and things taken out of context and similar things like this that are important that are not in quotes all the time. People are turning them all the way around. I’m not going to feel comfortable saying I said that.
MORRIS DEES: Wasn’t the real purpose for you writing “Ken Death” was to get in with East Side White Pride and POWAR, to get in with them as a group, as a WAR group?
JOHN METZGER: No, the real reason why I wrote that, here again, is because I had heard of some of their problems and I al-ready had met POWAR in Oklahoma-of course, POWAR was from Portland and I thought it was fair of me to write East Side White Pride. A lot of times, you’d have to say stuff like that to get them encouraged.
MORRIS DEES: Was it the reason you — Mazzella was, whether you
admit you sent him or not, the reason you wrote, ”You’ll get a feel for how we work when you meet Dave Mazzella soon” was because you wanted to get in — in other words get your WAR organization in — with East Side White Pride and POWAR, isn’t correct?
JOHN METZGER: That’s not correct. My statement, ”You’ll get a feel of how we work when you meet Dave Mazzella and Mike Gag-non soon” is because Dave was going to Portland. So I said, “Hey, these guys have similar ideas to ours, so you’ll get a feel of how we work,” ’cause Dave Mazzella and Mike Gagnon had ideas that were similar to mine on race. I didn’t know exactly where East Side White Pride was coming from.
MORRIS DEES: Was Dave Mazzella Vice President of Aryan Youth Movement or the youth division of WAR at the time he came to Portland on October 7,1988 and through the time this murder was committed?
JOHN METZGER: Dave Mazzella was Vice President all the way from May 1, 1987 and, to clear this up, he had become more and more into the skinhead scene and gotten away — and of course, vice presidency was a fictitious name anyway. He didn’t have any duties. And Dave Mazzella was Vice President — I was getting very discouraged with how Dave Mazzella was going because he had strayed away from, essentially
Judge ANCER L. HAGGERTY: Excuse me. Mr. Metzger. You have to answer the question that’s been asked. Was he the Vice President from October 7 through the date of the murder, yes or no?
JOHN METZGER: No, he wasn’t.
MORRIS DEES: Do you remember me asking you this same question and that was the title of Dave Mazzella when I took your deposition Thursday a week ago?
JOHN METZGER: I’m sure you asked me that question, yes.
MORRIS DEES: Well, didn’t you tell me at the time that I asked you whether Dave Mazzella was Vice President of your group, didn’t you answer me, “I’m blurry when he was or wasn’t. A whole volume of things are whizzing around in my head. I don’t know for sure”?
JOHN METZGER: Yes.
MORRIS DEES: Is that what you told me?
JOHN METZGER: You asked quite a few questions.
MORRIS DEES: In response to that specific question, was that the answer you gave me?
JOHN METZGER: Yes.
MORRIS DEES: Ten days ago?
JOHN METZGER: Uh huh.
MORRIS DEES: “A whole volume of things are whirling around in my head and I don’t know for sure when he was Vice President”-is that what you told me?
JOHN METZGER: Yes, I had to do some research.
MORRIS DEES: So, since last Thursday now, you got a better memory, is that what you’re telling me?
JOHN METZGER: I had to cram. It’s like an exam, going in court. With this $10-million civil suit, I’m handling it myself. You can’t expect me to know everything.
MORRIS DEES: But didn’t you know that was a central issue in this case from the very beginning? It stated in the complaint Mr. Mazzella was an agent. You knew that, didn’t you?
JOHN METZGER: This whole case is ridiculous. That’s what I’ve had to fight with myself all the way through it.
[Roundtable Discussion]
BILL MOYERS: We just heard John Metzger talking about “non-white hordes.” To what extent do you think that hate crimes like this are traceable to the fear of an avalanche of newcomers coming into the country and becoming the dominant culture?
SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: I think that’s what differentiates this period from the period-other periods in the past where the Klan was engaged in violence. Here not only is the violence being directed at African-Americans who are seeking equality, but it’s being directed at a changing America.
And I think that the young whites and white lower-income individuals are feeling threatened by the Asians, by the blacks, by the Hispanics and this violence and the cultural violence and the ideology of racism is being used as a means to “make them feel better about themselves.” I mean, why does someone become a racist? I think in part because they have to explain away their situation, they have to blame someone else and I think they’re scapegoating those “hordes” that are coming into the country.
RICHARD BROOKHISER: But, in fact, the 20’s Klan was not just anti-black. It was also anti-Jewish and it was mainly, probably, anti-Catholic. You know, it was very much opposed to the big wave of immigration that we got from 1880 up till the immigration laws were changed in 1924. And throughout American history, you have had Americans who have been alarmed and terrified of immigration. In the 1840’s, you had Catholic churches being burned and riots in Philadelphia, New York and Boston. America has a double-sided record on this thing. There has always been the fear and the resentment and the suspicion along with the welcoming.
MORI MATSUDA: Asian-Americans have been one of the groups specifically targeted by WAR, especially in California. If you listen to their Hate Line, the majority of the messages they have on their Hate Line are advocating violence against Asian-Americans. This is tied into the xenophobia and the nativism that you mentioned earlier and I think it’s also tied into a tradition of the myth of the Yellow Peril and of Asia-bashing and Asian-bashing that you see in the media and in popular culture.
BILL MOYERS: Well, the sources of their frustration, rage and alienation — if we’re going to listen to Mazzella — are many; I believe power, if it doesn’t support their aspirations; gender, if that gets in; economics. These people hate for many reasons. Well, let’s look at some of their conversation on a tape from the trial about their presence on talk shows.
AUDIENCE MEMBER [f]: [‘The Oprah Winfrey Show”] Why do you all feel that you’re better than us? What is all-
JOHN METZGER: That’s not an issue here.
AUDIENCE MEMBER [f]: This is all over with. We all got to live together as one and because I’m black you would not have the choice to not to want to sit with me. You’re going to have to sit with me ’cause God’s going to have the last, the last say so.
OPRAH WINFREY: I just heard what you said. You just said, “I don’t sit with monkeys.” You think because she’s black, be-cause I’m black, we’re monkeys, is that —
SKINHEAD: That’s a proven fact.
OPRAH: That’s a proven fact?
AUDIENCE MEMBER [f]: [“Geraldo”] What are you afraid of!
JOHN METZGER: The reason why I do that is because I get sick and tired of hearing the sob stories from kikes. I get sick and tired of seeing an Uncle Tom here, sucking up, trying to be a white man.
GERALDO RIVERA: Go ahead, Roy, go ahead.
ROY INNIS: Now, let me tell you — [stands up to face John Metzger]
DAVE MAZZELLA: No, sit down, man.
ROY INNIS: You’ve got to be kidding. You’ve got to be kidding. You’ve got to be kidding. Hey, hold it, hold it.
JOHN METZGER: Sit down.
ROY INNIS: Hold it — [a fight erupts between skinheads onstage]and in the audience and other panelists and audience members]
BILL MOYERS: Why should Tom Metzger be tried for inciting violence if Geraldo is not?
NORMAN SIEGEL: I think that there is a First Amendment and I think Geraldo and all the other people have, under the First Amendment, in my opinion, the right to put what you saw on. On the other hand-
BILL MOYERS: But Metzger doesn’t have the same right. Metzger said these things elsewhere and had to go to court for them.
NORMAN SIEGEL: No, Metzger can say things, but Metzger engaged in conduct and we’ll get back to that. But I think that what happens when you’re talking about the media-the question is whether you have a show discussing the nature of the skinheads and the way they set it up.
BILL MOYERS: But if the fight hadn’t broken out on Geraldo, I hear you saying anything goes as far as what is said there.
NORMAN SIEGEL: I believe yes.
BILL MOYERS: The First Amendment doesn’t apply just to rational speech.
NORMAN SIEGEL: That is correct and there’s a lot of irrational speech, but you have to, in my opinion, protect both the rational and irrational speech.
DANIEL LEVITAS: I think there’s a great misunderstanding about the First Amendment here, with regard to television portrayal of white supremacists. Somehow, the public has gotten the idea that there is an obligation under the First Amendment to give a forum-
NORMAN SIEGEL: Equal time.
DANIEL LEVITAS: — to neo-Nazis and there is no obligation, there is no legal requirement. There is nothing under the First Amendment or under the Constitution of the United States that says that Geraldo Rivera, Oprah Winfrey or any of these other talk show sponsors must grant equal time or license to neo-Nazis to spout violent rhetoric. And always, there’s an attempt to stage a confrontation or, in fact, to have almost exclusively a majority of people who will espouse hatred so that heat, rather than light, is shed on the subject.
BILL MOYERS: But is there any difference between putting Metzger on afternoon television to talk about his racist views and bringing him on Nightline to discuss the First Amendment?
CATHARINE MACKINNON: I think part of the question is whether the media asks itself that question when they do what they do. In other words, it does seem to me that it is important to give some amount of-to raise some kind of public awareness about the way that hate is being mongered in this country. At the same time, you know, it seems to me what was done in the excerpts here was, in fact, to provide a forum for something that is arranged as if it is a debate. In other words, it’s as if we are now actually going to dis-cuss the question as if it is a debatable issue, whether whites are superior to blacks and whether Jews wash.
I mean, it’s-in other words, the way that it is being done is as if to give an appearance of legitimacy and to provide actually a forum for recruitment for these people, rather than to do it in such a way that indeed exposes what they’re saying for what it is. And you know, and as Dan was just saying, you want to expose what they’re doing for what it is. You not only put them on television with their sanitized version of whatever their rap’s going to be — although I must say those were the least sanitized expressions of it — but you also have the consequences of what they do embodied there in real, human people to say, ”This is what this did to me.”
BILL MOYERS: But if media make entertaining these performances-
NORMAN SIEGEL: That’s right.
BILL MOYERS: — and you talked about entertainment, is, in fact, popular culture not therefore absorbing the hatred in such a way as to ameliorate it, as to diminish it?
CATHARINE MACKINNON: It’s a very difficult question, how to actually present this without participating in it because, indeed, the medium of its forward motion is the media and then, the media becomes part of promulgating it. And it’s the same question with pornography-how do you inform people about what’s in it without spreading pornography to primetime? And, you know and the answer is, you know-I want to say it is not a simple one, but it has everything to do with how it’s done. And I do think that the key is making clear who the victims are and the ways in which they’re victimized by it and not simply making it into a sanitized, rational discourse.,
RICHARD BROOKHISER: We’ve got to recognize that if hate crime or pornography or whatever it is becomes an issue, it’s going to be treated by the media, which is a word which covers a broad range of people who do it all differently.
NORMAN SIEGEL: But we agreed that that’s OK at that point and part of their obligation.
RICHARD BROOKHISER: Well, and-but we also have to recognize it’s going to be treated in all kinds of different ways. It’s going to be treated in very, you know, earnest ways at a high level of abstraction and analysis, you know, straight down to the cellar because that’s the way the media is and if it’s important enough for people to talk about it, people are going to talk about it in all different kinds of ways. We might-not approve of it, but that’s what’s going to happen.
NORMAN SIEGEL: You think the public wants to see the cellar version?
RICHARD BROOKHISER: Some people do. Some people do.
BILL MOYERS: A lot more people will watch the skinheads as we just saw them in those clips than will watch, with all due respect, your analysis of it.
RICHARD BROOKHISER: And with all due respect —
NORMAN SIEGEL: That’s not the two options.
CATHARINE MACKINNON: They also weren’t simply “talking” about it.
NORMAN SIEGEL: That’s not the two options.
CATHARINE MACKINNON: They weren’t just talking about it. They were doing hate speech.
RICHARD BROOKHISER: Again, with all due respect, there are people-there may well be someone out there in America who watches this show who is attracted to skinhead-ism because of our discussion. We can’t predict that. We can’t control that.
BILL MOYERS: So you would not censor ourselves?
RICHARD BROOKHISER: Well, you get in a bog once you start doing that. Where do you stop it?
BILL MOYERS: Mari Matsuda, you want to come in on this?
MORI MATSUDA: So far, the discussion, I think, has focused on does the media have a right to show this? Doesn’t the First Amendment protect this? I think there’s widespread agreement that there’s a broad range of what the media has a right to show, but there’s a separate question of what is ethical to show and I think the range of what is ethical to show is smaller than what people have a right to show. And I think that, as a consumer of what the media produces, I do have a lot of complaints. I find it startling that we can’t see on television two teenagers having a safe-sex conversation, but we can see teenagers talking about bashing people’s heads in on television. We can see repeated acts of violence, as was mentioned earlier-no coverage of the consequences of violence in real people’s lives.
But in making this an ethical issue, I want to emphasize that it’s not just an intellectual discussion we’re having here. Every time one of these hate groups is promoted on television, there’s an increase in actual violence in the streets against target groups and particularly people of color and real people with bodies who are bleeding are affected by what the media shows. So I do think it’s legitimate to talk about the ethical responsibility.
BILL MOYERS: If you were the executive producer of the Geraldo show or The Oprah Winfrey Show, or the Donahue show, would you bring the skinheads on?
MORI MATSUDA: Not in that format, no.
BILL MOYERS: How would you bring them on?
MORI MATSUDA: Well, as Professor MacKinnon pointed out, it’s complicated and unfortunately in the —
BILL MOYERS: But you can’t be complicated when you’re executive producer of a show.
MORI MATSUDA: Well, then I don’t think we should do it. I think if we can’t show these issues in all their complexities, if we can’t show the real effects on real people, if we can’t show the historical context, if we can’t tie it in to broader issues of racism, patriarchy, homophobia, militarism, then we shouldn’t do it because the risk is too great.
BILL MOYERS: At the trial, it’s now Tom Metzger’s turn to testify on the witness stand.
[Trial]
CLERK OF THE COURT: [Day 6] Do you solemnly swear the testimony you’re about to give in this case will be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you, God?
TOM METZGER: [Defendant’s Testimony] I do.
CLERK OF THE COURT: Please be seated, state your full name.
TOM METZGER: Thomas Metzger.
MORRIS DEES: Mr. Metzger, have you ever told or suggested to skin-heads that they should use violence?
TOM METZGER: No, I haven’t, unless it was in self-defense.
MORRIS DEES: Just unless it was in self-defense? So you never told them that they maybe ought to “kick a little ass,” then, unless it was in self-defense?
TOM METZGER: In self-defense.
MORRIS DEES: Your Honor, at this time, I’d like to, for impeachment purposes, playa videotape of Mr. Metzger.
Judge ANCER L. HAGGERTY: OK.
TOM METZGER: [home video, Aryan Fest — 1989, Tequila, Oklahoma] What should they do when they wake up?
1st SKINHEAD: Become a skinhead, quit drugs and-
TOM METZGER: Hey, quit drugs, huh?
1st SKINHEAD: — get some pride in their race-
TOM METZGER: Be proud?
1st SKINHEAD: — and get some pride in themselves.
TOM METZGER: Maybe kick some ass once in a while?
2nd SKINHEAD: Yeah.
TOM METZGER: You ever have to do that?
2nd SKINHEAD: Oh, on occasion. You need to, like every now and then, I guess.
TOM METZGER: How about over here?
3rd SKINHEAD: Oh, yeah.
TOM METZGER: Oh, every day, probably, huh?
MORRIS DEES: Mr. Metzger, I’d like to ask you if you made a speech to — in Tequila, Oklahoma at a skinhead Aryan meeting in 1989?
TOM METZGER: I believe I did.
MORRIS DEES: You made it also in 1988, did you not?
TOM METZGER: Yes, I did.
MORRIS DEES: Did you, in standing in front of the assembled skin-heads and other people, make the statement, “Do you know why Jews are afraid of skinheads?”-did you make that statement?
TOM METZGER: I don’t recall. I make a lot of speeches.
MORRIS DEES: Well, let me further ask you and then, I’ll ask you to look at the speech in which you have it all in quotes. It says-and your answer was, “‘Cause the skinheads kick ass.” Now, look on page two.
TOM METZGER: Yeah, it says a figurative-it’s figuratively speaking, yes.
MORRIS DEES: Well, but so we’ll make sure that you stated that there, look on page two of Plaintiffs Exhibit 75. In the bottom sentence on the first column — I’ve highlighted it for you — it says, “Do you know why the Jews are worried about skinheads?” You see that question? You asked that question, didn’t you, to a group of people?
TOM METZGER: Yes, I believe I did.
MORRIS DEES: And how’d you answer your question?
TOM METZGER: Well, that one sentence said, “Do you know why Jews are worried about skinheads?” and it’s ”’Cause skinheads kick ass,” as part of-
MORRIS DEES: Now, you-Tom Metzger, — as part of a larger speech.
MORRIS DEES: All right. And you were the one that made the statement there, correct?
TOM METZGER: I believe I did.
MORRIS DEES: And the piece of video that we just saw, you were ad-dressing skinheads at this very same meeting, talking to them about maybe kicking a little ass sometime-is that what you said?
TOM METZGER: Yes, along those lines. That has happened a lot, defensively.
MORRIS DEES: Now, while we have the jury here, while we’ve got Plaintiffís Exhibit 75, which is — I assume you printed this in your own material, right?
TOM METZGER: I believe we did.
MORRIS DEES: Now, you look through that and see if you see any-where in that talk that you quoted yourself saying anything about self-defense. You remember you did this at your deposition.
TOM METZGER: I don’t know whether I did or not.
MORRIS DEES: Well, at your deposition, didn’t we take the time-let me give you a copy of it. Didn’t we take time at your deposition — taken on March 20, 1990 — for you to look through that entire pardon me, for you to look through that entire speech?
TOM METZGER: I’ll you straight answers. I don’t need to look through this whole thing.
MORRIS DEES: So, what was your answer then?
TOM METZGER: What was the question again?
MORRIS DEES: The question was-you read this entire speech at your deposition while we waited for you to read it and asked you did anywhere — did you find anywhere that you talked about self-defense when you said and told skinheads to “kick ass.” And what was your answer then?
TOM METZGER: I don’t recall for sure whether I did or not, but it’s not required.
MORRIS DEES: Well, let’s look on page 191 of your deposition now.
TOM METZGER: The people there know how I operate.
MORRIS DEES: All right, look on page 191 of your deposition ’cause it took me about seven pages to get you to answer this question. That’s why this deposition’s so long. Look on page 191.
TOM METZGER: Is that the only reason?
JOHN METZGER: Your Honor, could I clarify something for the record?
Judge ANCER L. HAGGERTY: Well, not at this point, Mr. Metzger.
MORRIS DEES: Now, let’s go up on line 17, I asked you the question. I said, “Mr. Metzger, in reading the exhibit that I asked you to read” — that was your speech — “do you find the word or explanation of self-defense in referring to the skinheads using physical brutality against people?” And you said what? You said, “I think-” and then I said — question — “Find the word ‘self-defense'” and what was your answer? Just answer to the jury.
TOM METZGER: You mean, line 24?
MORRIS DEES: Line 24. What was your answer?
TOM METZGER: I said no.
MORRIS DEES: OK. Thank you.
TOM METZGER: And the reason for that is I had spent hours and hours with these young people, talking to them, before I ever made the speech and they were all instructed on obeying the law and not getting their ass in a jam because it didn’t help the movement. So they know what my position is.
MORRIS DEES: So they know this already?
TOM METZGER: If they don’t, they’d better.
MORRIS DEES: Now, when you made this speech that we saw on television, and then, when you made the speech you printed, you didn’t say one word about self-defense.
TOM METZGER: And I didn’t call for imminent violence, either, did I?
MORRIS DEES: Now, Mr. Metzger, you did some sort of an investigation of this killing of Mr. Seraw long before a lawsuit was filed, did you not?
TOM METZGER: Well, I didn’t have much information. I couldn’t afford to get the police reports and things, so I just had to go by what I could piece together. It was very difficult.
MORRIS DEES: Well, didn’t you-about two months after the murder of Mr. Seraw, didn’t you put on your tape for the other skinheads to listen to that Mr. Seraw did a-pardon me-that Mr. Mieske did a civic duty to kill Seraw?
TOM METZGER: I don’t recall any such statement.
MORRIS DEES: Let me see 84. Let’s refresh your memory here. Joe, play this, please and let’s ask him some questions about this one.
TOM METZGER: [audiotape of telephone answering machine message] Attention, Operator. This number takes no collect calls. You have reached Aryan Update, a production of WAR, White Aryan Resistance, P.O. Box [deleted], California 92028.
Dateline, Portland, Oregon. Now that the initial B.S. is waning in the skinhead-Ethiopian confrontation, we may find that these beautiful people were high on crack, that many of these beautiful Negroes have long arrest records. Sounds like the skinheads did a civic duty. They didn’t even realize it.
MORRIS DEES: Now, Mr. Metzger, does that refresh your memory? Did you, based on your investigation of this murder, state that Mr. Mieske had done a civic duty to the citizens of the United States to kill Mr. Seraw?
TOM METZGER: Well, that’s not the total statement. The whole — I mean, I heard the whole thing.
MORRIS DEES: It wasn’t?
TOM METZGER: I said —
MORRIS DEES: Answer that question.
TOM METZGER: I said, “Sounds”
MORRIS DEES: Are you denying your tape?
TOM METZGER: I sound — I said it sounds like they may have.
MORRIS DEES: OK.
TOM METZGER: Because it was found that these men were involved in those kind of activities.
MORRIS DEES: So they were smoking crack and all that kind of stuff and you thought it’s a-it’s a civic duty to kill them. Is that what your investigation showed?
TOM METZGER: No, I didn’t say that. I said it could have been.
MORRIS DEES: It could have been?
TOM METZGER: I’ve heard cops say it many times.
MORRIS DEES: So, is that-is that kind of a little hint you put out to your skinheads that if they see somebody that might be-have an arrest record, shoplifting, that it’s a civic duty to kill them?
TOM METZGER: This statement — so the jury doesn’t get confused — was made long, long after the events.
MORRIS DEES: What’s the date on that statement?
TOM METZGER: January 30, 1989.
MORRIS DEES: And how long was that after the event?
TOM METZGER: It was quite a while.
MORRIS DEES: About what? Two months?
TOM METZGER: Yeah. It was after the fact.
MORRIS DEES: That’s right-after you’d had a chance to investigate and after you’d had a chance to describe this killing to other skin-heads who called this hotline. Is that correct?
TOM METZGER: Yes. We found these Ethiopians had been involved in lots of things, but it never came out in court.
MORRIS DEES: And Mr. Mieske, you thought, did a civic duty to murder them, right?
TOM METZGER: It was a generic choice of words.
MORRIS DEES: Now, let me ask you this. Give me 85, Joe. A few months later, Mr. Mieske got sentenced and at that time, did you describe him to skinheads on this telephone line, who might call in, as “a young freedom fighter”? And then, wasn’t the message then was to tell the Ethiopians to get their ass out of this country? Do you remember that?
TOM METZGER: I may have said that. I don’t recall.
MORRIS DEES: I’ll let you listen to it and then I’ve got some questions to ask you concerning it. Joe, play it.
TOM METZGER: [audiotape of telephone answering machine message] — no collect calls. You have reached WAR, White Aryan Resistance. Aryan Update, P.O. Box [deleted], California 92028. Update: Portland, Oregon. One young fighter, Ken Mieske, received life for winning a fight with an Ethiopian recently. If your rotten government was not letting in all this mud, young white men would not have to be doing this time. Never forgive, don’t get mad, just get even. Your time will come. And don’t fight for their silly wars. Don’t fight for the corporations. Tell them to get their Ethiopian ass out of this country.
MORRIS DEES: Now, do you remember that now that you’ve heard yourself.
TOM METZGER: That’s my voice.
MORRIS DEES: Well, let’s just run through that kind of quickly here.
TOM METZGER: OK.
MORRIS DEES: First of all, in the ears of skinheads who might be calling to listen to this from around the United States, you described Mr. Mieske as a “young fighter.” Is that right?
TOM METZGER: He must have been. He was in a fight.
MORRIS DEES: Did you-is this glorifying Mr. Mieske for having received a sentence of 20 years to life for murder? Is this an at-tempt to glorify this man?
TOM METZGER: I don’t recall whether he had been sentenced to life at that time or not. Did you?
MORRIS DEES: We’ll, you see, you state that in the article — in the phone message. You said, “One young fighter, Ken Mieske, received life.” Read the date of this transcript.
TOM METZGER: This is June the 12th.
MORRIS DEES: Nineteen eighty-nine.
TOM METZGER: Right.
MORRIS DEES: Now —’ OK, let’s run on down through here. You said, “If your rotten government”-
TOM METZGER: Yeah. My rotten government, that’s right. Make sure that gets out there.
MORRIS DEES: — “was not letting all this mud”-“in all this mud”-now talk to us about-
TOM METZGER: Illegal invasion and everything like that, yes.
MORRIS DEES: And you think Mr. Seraw was here illegally? Is that what you’re saying?
TOM METZGER: I believe the invasion of the third world in this country is illegal, whether the government calls it illegal or not.
MORRIS DEES: Define “mud” for us, if you would.
TOM METZGER: I didn’t create the term.
MORRIS DEES: Well, if you used it —
TOM METZGER: You’ll have to ask a man in the East who publishes a newspaper that uses that term all the time created it.
MORRIS DEES: Well, how did you mean it when you put it on your ma-chine? You used the word. How’d you mean it?
TOM METZGER: Well, he uses it in: a derogatory way of non-white people that he doesn’t get along with.
MORRIS DEES: Well, just tell us-tell the jury, if you would, who you would consider “mud” people.
TOM METZGER: Well, you could use “mud,” you could “third world.” You can use any term you want.
MORRIS DEES: Well, would a Jewish person be mud?
TOM METZGER: Some of them would be even a little worse than mud.
MORRIS DEES: What about a black person?
TOM METZGER: It depends on that individual.
MORRIS DEES: So it just means certain individuals. Is that what you mean?
TOM METZGER: Well, that’s the way I operate.
MORRIS DEES: Your son said anybody that wasn’t Aryan was mud.
TOM METZGER: Well, in the broadest sense of the word.
MORRIS DEES: And you agree with what he said?
TOM METZGER: Well, the Bible says we come from the mud and dirt of the ground. What’s the problem?
MORRIS DEES: Oh, was that what you mean?
TOM METZGER: Is that an insult?
MORRIS DEES: Now, you tell these young people here, who were listening to this tape, after describing of how Mieske, who won a fight but yet ended up getting life for killing a mud person-you said “Never forgive, don’t get mad, just get even.” Well, what are you telling these young people here who listen to this tape?
TOM METZGER: Not to have confidence in the government anymore as it has applied to young white people. I truly believe that Ken Mieske, Kyle Brewster and Mr. Strasser were given a raw deal and legally hung in the State of Portland-or in the State of Oregon by a political establishment in Portland and they never had their chance in court.
MORRIS DEES: Yes?
TOM METZGER: And that’s what I honestly believe. 1-they may-he may have overreacted, but it was a fight, it got out of hand and the people of Portland hung him.
MORRIS DEES: Yes?
TOM METZGER: And the federal government did, too-
MORRIS DEES: Yes?
TOM METZGER: — and if they’d have been black, it never would have happened.
MORRIS DEES: Mr. Metzger, there’s no doubt in your mind, is it, but that Dave Mazzella was your agent, sent up here as Vice President of the youth section of your organization to organize in this town?
TOM METZGER: I don’t send anybody anyplace. He said he came here of his own choice. It was on the board yesterday. I don’t have the authority, the power, the money or-to tell anybody to go any-place ’cause if I tried to, they’d tell me where to go.
MORRIS DEES: Mr. Metzger, haven’t you made a $10-million claim against the City of Portland, claiming that Mr. Mazzella was their agent during the time of this murder?
TOM METZGER: I believe I did, yes.
MORRIS DEES: Let me show you what I’ve marked as Plaintiffs Exhibit 18. Is this a copy — Plaintiffs Exhibit 18 — of the claim that you’ve made for $10 million against the City of Portland?
TOM METZGER: Yes, it is.
MORRIS DEES: This claim is signed by who?
TOM METZGER: It should have been signed by me-yes, and John.
MORRIS DEES: And who else? You and John?
TOM METZGER: Yes.
MORRIS DEES: Now, you know-you understand that agent provocateur means that somebody provokes somebody into killing somebody-is that correct? Or provokes somebody-
TOM METZGER: Or provoking someone to provoke somebody else.
MORRIS DEES: All right. So, are you saying to the jury here that Mazzella is not your agent, but he’s the City of Portland’s agent and as their agent, he provoked Mieske and Brewster to kill this man? Is that what you’re saying?
TOM METZGER: I said I believed that.
MORRIS DEES: You believe that?
TOM METZGER: I said I believe that is possibly true.
MORRIS DEES: All right. So now, we’re getting to it. You’re not questioning whether Mazzella provoked him to kill him. You just said he did it as an agent of the City of Portland, is that correct?
TOM METZGER: I said I believed that —
MORRIS DEES: You believed it?
TOM METZGER: — that may be possible and we’re going to see about it as the time rolls on. Another civil trial, Mr. Dees.
MORRIS DEES: Mr. Metzger, did you make a request for people to leave money in their will and to leave real estate to WAR?
TOM METZGER: A couple of times I did. Nobody responded, so we quit doing it.
MORRIS DEES: Well, how did you decide that? Did you say — did you have a little will form in there and it says, “Leave money to Tom Metzger”? How-just how’d you write that up?
TOM METZGER: I don’t know exactly. I took it from another publication of another movement publication, Liberty Bell Publications.
MORRIS DEES: Well, did you — didn’t you, in fact, didn’t you write “Leave money Tom Metzger, Trustee for WAR”?
TOM METZGER: Yes, because I didn’t want to mislead people.
MORRIS DEES: Didn’t want to mislead them? So you said, “Trustee for WAR,” right?
TOM METZGER: Well, I’d copied that out of another magazine.
MORRIS DEES: Well, is WAR a non-profit organization?
TOM METZGER: No.
MORRIS DEES: Is it a personal and private business of Tom Metzger?
TOM METZGER: Well, it’s kept under one tax number and we’re not going to file for tax-exemption ’cause we wouldn’t get it.
MORRIS DEES: Well, then, in your deposition, didn’t I ask you the question, “Just tell me what kind of organization this is” and you said, “WAR is a personal, private business of Tom Metzger.”
TOM METZGER: That’s the way it’s registered with the State of California, under the various-White Point Publishing and Fallbrook TV.
MORRIS DEES: I guess I got to get an answer from you, if you could.
TOM METZGER: OK.
MORRIS DEES: Is WAR a personal, for-profit business of Tom Metzger.
TOM METZGER: Yes.
MORRIS DEES: That’s fine, thank you.
TOM METZGER: Trouble is we don’t make much profit.
MORRIS DEES: Here’s another copy of your publication, Volume 8, Number 4, which you showed to Mr. Mazzella and asked him if anything in it would encourage violence on the part of a skinhead along with all the other things you do. I don’t know if he had an answer or not.
TOM METZGER: He said he hadn’t read it. He hadn’t seen it.
MORRIS DEES: He hadn’t read it? Now, if you would look on the inside of this, on page four and, if you would, just explain to the jury what that’s a diagram of, a drawing of.
TOM METZGER: This is a cartoon about a black man who’s probably a criminal, giving some trouble to a white guy coming down the street. And in this cartoon by A. Whiteman, well, the black guy says, ”Well, look at this deleted, a mother-deleted skinhead. Look here, boy. I got somethin’ you can skin. Why don’t you skin my mother-deleted ass?”
MORRIS DEES: And then, what happens in the next —
TOM METZGER: So he — “As you wish, Melon-breath.” and he does.
MORRIS DEES: He kills him, right?
TOM METZGER: [laughing] He skinned him.
MORRIS DEES: He skins him-with a knife?
TOM METZGER: [smiling] That’s right.
MORRIS DEES: Mr. Metzger, in addition to these drawings that depict the — depict violence towards black people and brown people and mud people —
TOM METZGER: Or even government officials.
MORRIS DEES: Yes, sir — do you also include in your educational material drawings that demean black people, make them less than human or subhuman?
TOM METZGER: That’s subjective, what subhuman is.
MORRIS DEES: Well, do you have drawings in there that go — to these skinheads that depict a black person as less intelligent, for ex-ample, or being basically criminals or baboons?
TOM METZGER: Yeah, certain black people, yes. Not the entire race.
MORRIS DEES: Just certain black people?
TOM METZGER: Well, I can take you out here in Portland and
find you some people that act just like that, look just like that.
MORRIS DEES: And let me show you a board from that ’cause it might be easier for you to read.
TOM METZGER: OK.
MORRIS DEES: You see that?
TOM METZGER: Yeah.
MORRIS DEES: Your Honor, I offer Plaintiffs Exhibit 62.
JOHN METZGER: No objections?
TOM METZGER: No objections.
Judge ANCER L. HAGGERTY: Can you see-
MORRIS DEES: Now, you hold that up in front of the jury and I’d like you to read that into the record, what that says and hold it up so the jury could see it.
TOM METZGER: OK.
MORRIS DEES: Just read that to the jury.
TOM METZGER: [reading] Coon, coon, black baboon / Brutal, worthless, thieving goon / Often high, thrives in jail / His welfare check is in the mail / Some 40 offspring have been had / Not one will ever call him Dad / And yet, he hollers, day and night / I blames de white man fo’ my plight / It’s him spreads trash all ’round my shack / It’s him what makes me smoke dis crack / He push my kind to burn and loot / And sends de police dat we shoot / But inch by inch, we taken hold / Like when de white bread starts to mold / We’ll overrun your homes and soon / Dey be only fit fo’ dey black-ass coon.
MORRIS DEES: And down at the bottom, it says, “Unless you take action to prevent this right now”-did you say that? Look at the bot-tom of it right here. Just read that to the jury.
TOM METZGER: [reading] Unless you take steps to prevent it right now-Wake up, America”-which means that that type of Negro may be taking over your neighborhood, going to rape your wife and kids and loot your house. It doesn’t mean every black.
MORRIS DEES: Is that kind of like Mr. Seraw?
TOM METZGER: It has nothing to do with Mr. Seraw.
MORRIS DEES: Let’s look on page two of that same publication. We’re talking about doing things that demean and dehumanize black people. Is this, Plaintiffs Exhibit-
TOM METZGER: Some black people.
MORRIS DEES: Some black people — I’m going to ask you to distinguish in a moment.
TOM METZGER: The black people I know don’t think they fit in that.
MORRIS DEES: Is that correct?
TOM METZGER: That’s true.
MORRIS DEES: Well, let’s look at this drawing and is this a copy of Plaintiffs Exhibit 64?
TOM METZGER: Yes.
MORRIS DEES: Your Honor, I offer 64 into evidence.
JOHN METZGER: No objection?
TOM METZGER: No objection, Your Honor.
Judge ANCER L. HAGGERTY: Proceed.
MORRIS DEES: Would you hold this up there and just read to the jury how you describe this black person’s head that’s dissected and showing his brains?
TOM METZGER: I don’t describe anybody. I didn’t write the — make the cartoon.
MORRIS DEES: Yes, but you published it, didn’t you?
TOM METZGER: Well, that obviously makes me guilty of something.
MORRIS DEES: And this stuff is consistently published and distributed by you, is it not, sir?
TOM METZGER: Cartoons are consistently published by me.
MORRIS DEES: You call it a cartoon? Do you think this is funny?
TOM METZGER: That is funny.
MORRIS DEES: Read — just read the copy into the record.
TOM METZGER: That particular black man, yeah.
MORRIS DEES: Yes.
TOM METZGER: [reading] ”Let’s answer the scientific question, ‘What’s on a Nigger’s Mind?'” They got up there, “Crave for watermelon,” “Crave for drugs, alcohol, pussy, gold chains and drumbeats.” And then, they have a section for criminal behavior.
MORRIS DEES: Now, that takes up most of the brain case area, doesn’t it?
TOM METZGER: Just like in this town — 50 percent of the crime, yes.
MORRIS DEES: And then read on the rest of the things that take up a small part of the brain, like-
TOM METZGER: [reading] “Responsibility, vocal skills, intelligence, hygiene, creative skills — must be viewed through a microscope — logic and proportion.” And like I say, I can take you within a mile of here and show you someone who acts just like this that happens to be black.
MORRIS DEES: Yes. You know any white people that might fit that same category?
TOM METZGER: Sure.
MORRIS DEES: Did you put any of those in your publication?
TOM METZGER: I have attacked white people quite a bit. In fact, some of my worst enemies are white people —
MORRIS DEES: Yes, sir?
TOM METZGER: — like you.
MORRIS DEES: We have an exhibit, Plaintiffs Exhibit 146. May I show it to the witness, Your Honor?
Judge ANCER L. HAGGERTY: You may.
MORRIS DEES: This was an exhibit that-it’s a letter to you and you produced this, so I assume you must have received it and-we marked it, though. And that’s a letter to you from Mr. Mazzella. Read the first line to the jury.
TOM METZGER: [reading] “It was good to talk to you.”
MORRIS DEES: Well, did you go visit him in person?
TOM METZGER: I don’t think so.
MORRIS DEES: So, how’d he talk to you?
TOM METZGER: I don’t remember — if it was —
MORRIS DEES: Sir?
TOM METZGER: — telephone — who cares? I don’t care. Somebody called me — if he called me, I talked to him. I just don’t remember it.
MORRIS DEES: So you could have continued your telephone relationship even after he left Portland, based on the fact that you produced the letter and the first sentence says thank you for calling him?
TOM METZGER: Well, it wouldn’t be the first person that I wasn’t entirely happy with that called me on the telephone.
MORRIS DEES: And then he wrote you this long letter about how he intended to go back to Portland and organize WAR, didn’t he?
TOM METZGER: Upper middle class kids and adults and some skins, he says.
MORRIS DEES: And some skinheads. He wrote you that back, didn’t he?
TOM METZGER: Well, he wrote it, but he wasn’t going to go back for us.
MORRIS DEES: You had already found out that he snitched up there, didn’t you?
TOM METZGER: I just found out he was unreliable —
MORRIS DEES: Unreliable because you found out —
TOM METZGER: — the same way you’ll find out.
MORRIS DEES: You found out he told the police what happened, didn’t you?
TOM METZGER: The same way you’ll find out he’s unreliable. I’m sorry, Your Honor.
MORRIS DEES: Your Honor, move to strike the question, admonish the jury and the witness. Instruct the jury, please.
Judge ANCER L. HAGGERTY: The last response will be stricken. The jury will disregard it.
BILL MOYERS: [voice-over] Tom Metzger, as his own attorney, interrogates himself.
TOM METZGER: [Day 7] Mr. Metzger, do you teach skinheads or anyone else to kill or hurt people? No, never have. Mr. Metzger, are your primary weapons ideas, newspapers and television production? Yes. That’s all I’ve ever used, the art of changing people’s minds and putting ideas in their head through legitimate means-television, newspapers, telephone machines, fax machines, any legal way that anyone else does the same thing. Mr. Metzger, the plaintiffs yesterday went through, very selectively, many items and cartoons in your newspaper. Do you believe everything you have published is protected by the First Amendment? Yes, I do or I wouldn’t be publishing it. And I don’t ask the government what I’ll print-never have, never will. I don’t ask the people down the block, either. I’ll print what I choose to print. Obviously, we wrote many, many articles on many, many things about the draft, about ecology, about intervention in Central America-on all kinds of subjects, so there’s-obviously, this is a very selected group of things that were chosen by the plaintiffs. Mr. Metzger, I’m through with you.
Judge ANCER L. HAGGERTY: John Metzger?
JOHN METZGER: Good morning. Mr. Metzger, Dad, have you ever attacked anyone because of their political beliefs or the color of their skin-physically?
TOM METZGER: No. No association or anything I’ve belonged to ever tried to stop other people’s freedom of speech by attacking them or the meeting place. It would have been very easy, on many occasions, to attack leftist group meetings and so forth and a lot of-and some things we didn’t agree with. There’s meetings going on all the time and it’d be very easy to attack them. I’ve never done that. I’ve never been accused of that. But my freedom of speech and my going to a hall and giving a speech-I’ve been attacked over and over and over again by these people.
JOHN METZGER: Why do you publish the newspaper, WAR?
TOM METZGER: Because I believe in a free press, free-free transmission of ideas. As long as I’m not convinced this government is a dictatorship, we’re going to continue to practice our rights. When we are-when we’re stopped from publishing a newspaper, stopped from putting out TV shows, when we’re stopped from having phone machines — I’ve been very clear about it that at that point, all bets are off and I can’t tell you what I might do then.
[Roundtable Discussion]
BILL MOYERS: For me, as a journalist, this is the nub of the issue. Metzger claims that his rights of free speech were being abridged. Do you agree?
MORI MATSUDA: Not in this particular instance. I think neo-Nazi hate groups have become quite sophisticated in their use of the First Amendment as a cover for organized violence and I think what’s critical, from a civil liberties perspective, in any trial like this one, is to distinguish between threats, intimidation, instruction and direction of violence, on the one hand, and political free speech, expression, ideas on the other hand. Not every time a word comes out of someone’s mouth is a First Amendment issue raised. I think that when speech becomes intimidation, when speech is directing violence and instructing violence in the same way that an organized crime leader might instruct a murder that that’s not a free speech issue.
BILL MOYERS: But what about Senator Helms’s-Jesse Helms’s argument recently? [reading] “Where are we heading in this country when a thought or a rally or a comment by the Klan or Black Panthers or the Jewish Defense League becomes a crime just be-cause it happens to offend one special interest group or we happen to find it offensive?”
CATHARINE MACKINNON: Mr. Seraw was not offended.
NORMAN SIEGEL: Jesse Helms is once again wrong in his analysis. What he just said is not going to be punished. The mere statements, the mere speech, the mere advocacy to no particular person is clearly protected under the First Amendment as of today. So Helms is setting something up that’s just not accurate.
There are some rules with regard to this issue and, generally speaking, you draw a line between speech, which is protected, and conduct that is not protected. Then, there are more difficult issues where the conduct and the speech are overlapping, intertwined, interconnected. That’s a more difficult situation. The court also talks about that if I’m at a rally and I’m three miles from City Hall and I get up and say to people, “The government is this and this, let’s burn City Hall,” but there’s no intentional incitement to imminent action where my advocacy could produce that kind of result, I’m protected.
On the other hand, if I’m in the parking lot in front of City Hall and I’ve got a hundred people there and they’ve got torches there and we’ve got gasoline and I make that same speech and three minutes later, the mob burns City Hall, that’s not protected.
BILL MOYERS: So, I hear the Civil Liberties Union arguing that there are limits to free speech.
NORMAN SIEGEL: There are limits to free speech, yes. There’s limits in the context of court decisions. When someone calls someone up continuously on a phone and says, ”You black nigger, I’m going to get you tomorrow,” and that continues to happen, although that’s speech, that’s also harassment. That is not protected.
CATHARINE MACKINNON: The distinction, I think, is fairly bogus in many instances. For example, you know, you point a gun at some-one or you tell someone to point a gun at someone and say, “Fire,” what is that-speech or conduct? Or say you train a guard dog to kill, then you take your guard dog out and you say, “Kill,” and the guard dog lunges. Is that speech or conduct? You know, it-I mean, it isn’t-there isn’t-the distinction is not particular and it’s going to kill him.
BILL MOYERS: Come back to Tom Metzger, Catharine MacKinnon. Here is a man who published a newspaper and aired cable TV shows that embraced very unpopular and distasteful — by the measure of this group and a large segment of our society — ideas. All he says is, “I just publish these views. I can call anybody any name I want to under the First Amendment. I’m not responsible for the person who acts on what I say.”
CATHARINE MACKINNON: This is advocacy of murder in a political con-text. Now, what-why, all of a sudden, are we engaging in all the First Amendment deep breathing here? There’s-when usually, when people engage in what would otherwise be called advocacy of murder, it is taken simply as evidence of their relationship to the fact that a murder occurred. When it happens in a political context, all of a sudden, everybody thinks they’ve got a big-deal First Amendment issue.
DANIEL LEVITAS: What was at stake at this trial was far more than publishing hateful “cartoons” in Tom Metzger’s newspaper. There was an individual, Dave Mazzella, who was, for all other intents and purposes, employed, although he did not receive monetary compensation — the “agency” theory that Morris Dees pursued in this case — who was acting as an agent of the White Aryan Resistance. He reported-
CATHARINE MACKINNON: Right, but all the evidence of his agency is “speech.” In other words, all of it —
DANIEL LEVITAS: Not so. No, no-
CATHARINE MACKINNON: No, what I’m saying is —
SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: There was evidence of violence.
DANIEL LEVITAS: It was training.
SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: The first-excuse me.
CATHARINE MACKINNON: No — well, training is done through words.
SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: No. The first thing that was —
CATHARINE MACKINNON: Incitement is done through words.
SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: With all due respect —
CATHARINE MACKINNON: Encouragement is done through words.
SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: The First Amendment-
CATHARINE MACKINNON: All of it is done through words and that’s standard the way torts are proved, it’s standard the way murder is proved. I’m not saying that makes it protected speech. I’m saying it makes it evidence of a crime, but one has to look at the implications of that-
BILL MOYERS: The speech is evidence of the crime?
CATHARINE MACKINNON: Yes-constantly used as such.
SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: But the first thing —
CATHARINE MACKINNON: We get it in as racism and all of a sudden, what we’ve got to do is talk about, you know, the political implications of this.
SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: See, the first thing that Mazzella did when he got to town was to beat up black people. He didn’t just talk about it, he engaged in conduct. And see, I think that’s what distinguishes Tom Metzger and Jesse Helms’ position that, “Well, you’re punishing me for speaking.” No, we’re not. Under the law at this point — and maybe we should change the law — but under the law at this point, I can punish you when you engage in speech and violent conduct and that’s what Mazzella went to Portland to do and that’s what he said Tom Metzger trained him how to do.
CATHARINE MACKINNON: There was no discussion of the racial context within which he hauls this individual out and says, “Are you white? Are you white?” OK? The guy says, ”Well, well, yeah, I’m white.” He says, ”What’s your name?” — I’m talking about what he said — and then, he says, “Get down on my knees and kiss my boot,” he said, OK? Now, up that point, presumably-you know, everyone here is saying, you know, ”What? There’s no evidence? That isn’t speech? What? That’s all protected? Everything’s fine? It only becomes un-fine at the moment at which he raises the boot just little bit?”
RICHARD BROOKHISER: They’re fighting words. That’s an old —
CATHARINE MACKINNON: No, I’m saying it may — it’s racist from jump.
NORMAN SIEGEL: Which doesn’t have application very much anymore. I think that-if I can go back and if all this case was about was that Metzger published a newspaper and had editorials and cartoons, if he made speeches and if he had the hotline and that was the extent of it, I would be the first one out there saying his First Amendment rights were violated. I do think that this is more than just that. There was the recruiting, the training. There was the evidence that they taught people, encouraged people to use guns, to use knives, to break-
MORI MATSUDA: And celebrated every time there was an assault or murder.
NORMAN SIEGEL: — and when it was going on, were encouraging that. There is agency elements here with regard to the selection of a particular person. I think that what we’re talking about is when there are crimes. And you are correct. If I go up to someone and say, “Let’s kill that person,” if someone else shoots the gun and I’m there at the scene even though I didn’t shoot the gun, I’m involved in that crime and therefore, the question of speech and conduct is a complicated one. There are some clear answers and then there are some that aren’t.
MORI MATSUDA: I think that there are First Amendment issues on both sides of this equation. In other words, we’ve talked about the trend to, for instance, say that a cross-burning is protected speech and I think that’s what Jesse Helms was trying to say in your quote.
But what about the speech rights of the people who have that cross-burning on their front lawn the day after they wrote a letter to the editor in the paper or the day they chose to invite a person of another race to their home to associate with them? They engaged in their rights, in expressions of their ideas, their liberties, their interests and association and then, a cross burns on their law.
And I’d like to insert, you know, some realism, into this discussion. I think anyone that knows the history of the connection be-tween the symbol of the burning cross and lynching and direct violence knows that that is a threat and that it will chill speech and that if someone receives a message like that, they’ll think twice before they write another letter to the editor.
Someone like Tom Metzger is not trying to enhance public discussion about race relations. He’s trying to silence, intimidate and destroy.
BILL MOYERS: If I burn a cross on Mr. Scott-McLaughlin’s lawn tonight or anybody burns a cross, there’s not a law —
SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: You’re trespassing.
BILL MOYERS: Now, if it was going to be trespassing not on your lawn, but in the street in front of your home-
NORMAN SIEGEL: That’s the issue.
BILL MOYERS: — is that a political statement? Do you interpret it as a political statement?
CATHARINE MACKINNON: It absolutely is a political statement.
SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: It’s a political, racist statement.
CATHARINE MACKINNON: It’s also an act of segregation.
BILL MOYERS: I would think it’s a racial statement.
SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: Yeah, well, it’s both because —
CATHARINE MACKINNON: But, of course, race is political.
SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: That’s right. There’s a politics —
NORMAN SIEGEL: And protected.
SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: I mean, racism was not only political, it was constitutional for a very long time. So it is part of political speech, yes. And let’s take that cross from the front of my house to a field where the Klan is marching. That’s still political racial speech, but it’s not being done now to intimidate me to sell that house and flee my neighborhood. That-I have no problem with the Klan putting that cross in front of someone else in their own yard while they demonstrate. That’s OK. They’re not intimidating me. But if they put the cross in front of my house, they’re directing their “speech,” if you will, at me.
BILL MOYERS: You have problems with that?
CATHARINE MACKINNON: Oh, yeah. I have problems with it in that it seems to me that there is a direct relationship between acts like cross-burning, which are communicative acts — as, in fact, frankly, most acts are — that is, we —
BILL MOYERS: “Communicative,” you mean they are trying to —
CATHARINE MACKINNON: Acts say things as well as do things and also words do things as well as say things. So, you know, again, the speech-conduct distinction doesn’t really make any sense. It’s something that is-it’s a legal fiction.
BILL MOYERS: I have to limit your free speech because we are out of time.
RICHARD BROOKHISER: Speaking of reality.
BILL MOYERS: Speaking of reality-but having just, over the summer, read your book, The Way of the WASP, which is talking about the changing nature of —
RICHARD BROOKHISER: You’re trying to drive me from this table?
BILL MOYERS: I’m trying to drive you from this table and me, too.
NORMAN SIEGEL: We’ll defend your right to stay here.
BILL MOYERS: Well, it is a fact that if — as this column says, “If present trends hold, white Americans will be a minority by 2050.” I mean, there — the country is changing. Given the pluralism, given the diversity, given the animosities that are arising in response to that, can we afford free speech anymore?
RICHARD BROOKHISER: Well, we have to. I mean, I think the whole notion of the racial composition of the country changing is, in many ways, a bogus notion because America has had immigration for longer than there has an been America. There have been minorities coming here for 300 years and they’ve ended up being Americans, meaning playing by certain sets of rules.
NORMAN SIEGEL: What happens if they decide they don’t want to be American American, but they want to retain their own culture and identity? What do you then say?
RICHARD BROOKHISER: Historically Americans had room for that. There have been Amish in this country for 350 years.
BILL MOYERS: A lot of Mulugeta Seraws have paid a price for this constant change. How many of those do we tolerate?
RICHARD BROOKHISER: We shouldn’t tolerate one. I mean, murder is a crime.
NORMAN SIEGEL: We shouldn’t tolerate the racism, the sexism, homophobia. I think, as I said earlier on this show, is that there’s a huge challenge and we have to get out there, using the First Amendment in a very effective aggressive way to try to educate people so that we can move them away from that.
BILL MOYERS: With what Mr. Brookhiser said, though, with so many-and he’s optimistic about this process because he says there are certain core American values that the immigrants-we have all bought into over the 300 years. But with so many different views being aired so indiscriminately, are those core values at risk?
SCOTT McLAUGHLIN: I don’t think the core values are at risk. I think that the problem is how do we correct, how do we change the racist ideology from infiltrating and infecting a whole generation in the schools? And I think one way to do that is to do what Norm is suggesting, that is, to teach not just anti-racism, if you will, but to teach the country, the students, about Japanese Americans, about the contributions of Ethiopians, about the contributions of Native Americans and Jewish Americans, to teach about the culture.
NORMAN SIEGEL: And we have to teach tolerance. Tolerance is the overriding theme and I see the time has run out.
BILL MOYERS: The time, of course. We have one more PBS break and then, we’ll return to hear the most damaging evidence of all in the case against the Metzgers.
[Trial]
BILL MOYERS: [voice-over] The final witness is Rick Cooper, an old friend of Tom Metzger’s. He has come to testify on Metzger’s be-half, but ironically, Cooper gives away the most damaging evidence against his friend.
MORRIS DEES: [Day 8] Do you see where it says, “Portland”?
RICK COOPER, Publisher, “National Socialist Vanguard,” Defendants Witness: Yes.
MORRIS DEES: OK. Now, do you state that the skinheads are moving in the area? This is October 1988, you know.
RICK COOPER: Yes.
MORRIS DEES: That’s when Mr. Mazzella was supposed to have gotten up here, OK? You say the skinheads are moving in the area. Now, I want you to read to jury where it says, “Likewise, almost immediately”-do you see that?
RICK COOPER: Yes.
MORRIS DEES: Read that to the jury.
RICK COOPER: [reading] “Likewise, almost immediately, skin-head activity increased in Portland with reports of increased as-saults on non-whites, racially mixed couples and race traitors.”
MORRIS DEES: Whoa, now, stop right there. Now, where did you get this-
RICK COOPER: Well, there’s more to it-
MORRIS DEES: Where did you get this information about all these-as soon as Mazzella got up here in October, with all these assaults increasing on non-whites and racially mixed couples and race traitors?
RICK COOPER: That’s information I compiled from the sources that reached me.
MORRIS DEES: Well, was that all in the newspaper or something? That’s how you picked it up?
RICK COOPER: No, that’s-well, some of it’s from the newspaper, some of it’s from personal contact, some of it from letters. I get sources from all over and I report it and this is a report on what is happening.
MORRIS DEES: Yes, but you wrote this in November-I mean, October 1988. Are you telling this jury that you didn’t have skinheads — Dave Mazzella and others — reporting to you about all this violence and you was hot on the phone to Tom Metzger, telling him about it so he could put on his update?
RICK COOPER: I wasn’t in contact with Michael Barrett, very little. Dave Mazzella called me.
MORRIS DEES: Is that right?
RICK COOPER: I’m in contact with a lot of them.
MORRIS DEES: So you’re telling the jury that-do you have anybody at the police department that gives you their confidential information about reports that would be in town?
RICK COOPER: No.
MORRIS DEES: So you’re telling the jury that you got it out of the newspapers pretty much, is that right?
RICK COOPER: I get it from a variety of sources. I didn’t say I got it from just the newspapers. I said I got it from the newspapers, I got it from individuals writing to me, I got it from individuals telephone me — telephoning me.
MORRIS DEES: So, in other words, the newspaper was part of your source of all this increased attacks in 1988?
RICK COOPER: That’s part of it, yes.
MORRIS DEES: Part of it. And then read the next sentence to the jury. ”These assaults were” — read that.
RICK COOPER: [reading] ”These assaults were noted by the police department and tallied”-
MORRIS DEES: Read slow.
RICK COOPER: [reading] “These assaults were noted by the police department and tallied, but there was nothing in the news until November 13th.”
MORRIS DEES: Stop right there. Now, what happened on November 13th?
RICK COOPER: That was a-that was a fight involving the three Ethiopians against the three skinheads.
MORRIS DEES: So, in other words, you wrote in your own report that all these assaults, increased assaults on non-whites, racially mixed couples and race traitors-you say-you told the jury a few minutes ago that you didn’t get any — that you got it from the newspaper, partially, but in this report you wrote, this is, “nothing in the news.” You wrote that, didn’t you?
RICK COOPER: Well, there was nothing in the news up till November 13th that I know it.
MORRIS DEES: I see. And you understood, did you not-there’s been testimony in here that Dave Mazzella was an agent of the City of Portland. Do you have any information that he was an agent of the City of Portland, hired by the District Attorney or the Police Chief?
RICK COOPER: I have no information on that, but I’d like to know why he can brag about everything he’s done and not be charged with one single thing?
MORRIS DEES: But you don’t know any facts on that, do you?
RICK COOPER: No, I don’t know anything.
MORRIS DEES: Well, do you believe that he was an agent of the Ku Klux Klan up here?
RICK COOPER: No.
MORRIS DEES: You don’t believe that, do you?
RICK COOPER: No.
MORRIS DEES: All right. You have no reason on earth to believe that, do you?
RICK COOPER: No.
MORRIS DEES: All right. Well, why don’t you tell this jury who you thought Dave Mazzella was up here representing in October 1988. Who do you think it was?
RICK COOPER: I think he was representing himself.
MORRIS DEES: You do? Well, why don’t you read the next-
RICK COOPER: I think he’s a borderline sociopath.
MORRIS DEES: Read the next sentence, then, in your report. It was written way before this trial. Read that out loud.
RICK COOPER: OK. [reading] “It should also be noted that both WAR skins-WAR skin leaders Dave Mazzella and Mike Barrett from southern California began recruiting in Portland by distributing large quantities of WAR.
MORRIS DEES: Whoa. Now, wait a minute. Back in October, you said Dave Mazzella-in fact, you made a point — “It should be noted” were leaders of WAR. You know what WAR is? Tell the jury —
RICK COOPER: White Aryan Resistance.
MORRIS DEES: What Aryan Resistance, right? Skins. You heard that, didn’t you?
RICK COOPER: Yes.
MORRIS DEES: That’s what you just said and that’s what you thought back in 1988, wasn’t it?
RICK COOPER: Well, they were-WAR was a skinhead group.
MORRIS DEES: That’s right. Sir?
RICK COOPER: It was a skinhead group.
MORRIS DEES: “WAR skins” is —
RICK COOPER: They called themselves ”WAR skins.”
MORRIS DEES: What?
RICK COOPER: They called themselves ”WAR skins.”
MORRIS DEES: Right, right. You understand — and WAR stands for White Aryan Resistance, doesn’t it?
RICK COOPER: Yes.
MORRIS DEES: All right. I had no idea that the best piece of evidence in this trial was going to come off the witness stand today through one of his wit-nesses. He put up his expert, the Nazi expert of this area — his friend of 17 years, a man that believes like he believes, he shares his feelings with, he puts on his radio talk show — and this man gets up here this morning in front of this jury and hands us our case right here.
And I want you to take his literal point back there and I put a little yellow sticker on it and he just tells you who Dave Mazzella and Barrett was up here representing and exactly what they was doing. Tom Metzger and John Metzger knew why they sent them up here. They sent them up here to create racial violence. These men laughed about it in an interview and right here this morning on the stand and I’m sure that Tom Metzger did not know that we had this little report or he never would have put that man on the witness stand.
MORRIS DEES: He said in that report, [reading] “Almost immediately, skinhead activity increased in Portland with reports of increased assaults on non-whites, racially mixed couples and race traitors.” Now, what did Dave Mazzella tell he’d do when he got up here? He started kicking folks, beating up folks because Tom had told him, ”That’s what you do.” You saw Tom tell those little skinheads, “Kick a little ass.” You know, he said it. He said he didn’t, but you saw it on television, he said it.
Everything we prove now has got a double meaning, it’s a big joke. He’s just joking, he didn’t mean it, didn’t meant it a bit. Tom says, “I didn’t mean it.” We’ll, when this man brought this report in here today, which sets out exactly what they was doing, it told exactly who Dave Mazzella was. Dave Mazzella was up here, representing WAR skins-WAR skins. In his own publication, they got a big old ad for WAR skins with their own address. Now, how much closer can you get?
He said how could he control these people up here? Well, he con-trolled them through Dave Mazzella. He controlled them through his agent and the judge will tell you, under all of our legal theories, if Dave Mazzella did it, if Dave Mazzella was told to do it, if Tom knew he did this kind of thing on a regular basis and he came up here with that purpose, then Tom and John and WAR are just as guilty.
MORRIS DEES: Dave Mazzella said he carried the stuff with him and it says and it’s real simple — ‘We got a new sport. It’s where white youth seek out non-white individuals and break their bones.” How much more direct do you need? Well, this is the kind of stuff-John says-well, John says, “I didn’t write that thing.” Tom says, “I didn’t write that editorial.” Well, I don’t know if they wrote it or not. They paid to print it, they distributed it and they gave it to the young men that was out working for them. But in this, he talks about steel-toed boots as the favorite choice for inflicting pain against “ill-prepared sludge.” My client’s not sludge and nobody in this room is “sludge.” Nobody’s mud. We’re all human beings. And the baseball bat that was swung, that hit Mulugeta Seraw on the head started in Fallbrook, California. And we want you to come back with a verdict to tell the citizens of this nation and the Tom Metzgers of the world that that’s not the way we run this country. That is not right. There are limits to what people can do.
Tom’s America, as he would see it, there would be no Bill Cosby and Jonas Salk, or the black man who is the highest official in our United States military, General Colin Powell. There would not be the music of Leonard Bernstein and I can go on and on and on. In some kind of way, his mind — twisted and warped and sick as it is — is so paranoid, everybody is against him. The drug lords are after him, the FBI, the IRS, the Portland police, the District Attorney, the Plaintiffs’ Counsel, everybody.
MORRIS DEES: I don’t really know how to sum this case up for you, other than saying that the America that Tom Metzger would like to have is not an America that’s ever existed. The very man who discovered this continent could not even be — the Italian — could not even be a member of his organization, nor could the king and queen who financed his trip and nor could the Poles, the Japanese, the Chinese, the Italians, the Greeks that settled this great country.
He said that these skinheads — this skinhead Mieske did a civic duty. Well, you can do a civic duty when you return a verdict for the plaintiff.
TOM METZGER: When I moved to Fallbrook, California, I thought, just like a lot of people here, “Oh, it couldn’t happen here.” We had a nice little community and boy, we’d be this way and it would always stay that way and it was clean and nice and the schools were great. And they went over us like a steamroller, destroying that little town. We’re being invaded from Mexico and everywhere in the South.
People all over my community that are upper class, sophisticated people that I do work for, where are they going? ‘Tom, this thing is going to hell and we’re getting out now,” and “Where are you going?” ‘We’re going to Oregon,” or ‘We’re going to Washing-ton.”
Remember that statement-“I’m glad I made the choice to come to Portland.” Free will-not a robot. Dave Mazzella — “I’m glad I made the choice to come to Portland.” And the other statement- “Tom and John Metzger did not teach me in the ways of skin-heads.” I think those two statements are the most important statements that can be attributed to Mr. Mazzella. Most of the rest was half-truth and out-and-out lies.
Well, if there were four people on this jury that could see through Dave Mazzella, then there wouldn’t be a case. If there were four people on this jury that can look at Tom and John Metzger and say, ‘Well, I hate everything they stand for, I don’t want to ever be around people like that” — but you are all the time, they just don’t tell you a lot of time — you can go through all that, you’d say, “Gee, this is my chance, I’ve got my-we got him where we want him now, we can smash these guys.”
Tom will lose his house. His wife and kids will have to figure out someplace to live. John may not have a financial future at all, even though he’s one of the finest young men that California’s produced.
The eyes of the country are on this case. If this were as simple as somebody got in a fight and Seraw was killed, it would be one thing, but it’s not. There is a growing underclass of white people in this country. They’re dropping through the grating. They’re becoming poorer and poorer and poorer and they don’t like what’s happening in this country, but they would hope that we still have the right to advocate, to form political parties. They would like for us to reassure them of that. Three men are in prison for the best parts of their lives for this fight and this crime — this terrible tragedy-tragedy in the middle of the street, in the middle of the night — and they-two of them, they’ve admitted to me they knew it’s-they-now it was stupid. They’re not happy it happened. They’re not jumping up and down with glee. Of course not. Their lives have been destroyed.
I think, for the good of law and justice, we better leave it at that because if the witch hunt starts, I can’t tell you where it’s going to end. I’m through.
BILL MOYERS: [voice-over] Verdict: liable on all charges. The jury found the Metzgers responsible for Seraw’s death and awarded a total of $12.5 million in economic and punitive damages to the victim’s family. Recently, I asked Morris Dees what has happened in the lives of the main players since the trial.
[on screen] Verdict: Defendants are found liable as follows: for economic damage, $475,000; for non-economic damages, $2,000,000; for punitive damages — Tom Metzger, $5,000,000; John Metzger, $5,000,000; WAR, $3,000,000; Kenneth Mieske, $500,000; Kyle Brewster, $500,000 — Total: $12,500,000, dated this 22nd, October, 1990.
BILL MOYERS: [interviewing] Well, what was the point of bringing a civil suit?
MORRIS DEES: Well, two reasons. The primary reason was to get money for the young Seraw child who lives in Ethiopia and who had no means of support. His father came to this country seeking the American way, seeking an education, possibly becoming a citizen, but at least being able to support his son. That was my primary purpose, as a lawyer, to represent my client and get money, which we have done. And the second reason is to try to put a stop to the type activities that Tom and John Metzger and his WAR operation conduct and that is, in this case, using skinheads to commit racial, violent acts around the country.
BILL MOYERS: Where is Mazzella now?
MORRIS DEES: He’s doing fine. I really wouldn’t want to say because Mazzella’s life is probably in danger, He was a courageous young man to step forward and to testify in this case. He didn’t have to do that. He came in on his own. He’s a changed person. He’s doing well, I think if his whereabouts was disclosed, there are people who would probably want to harm him that are connected with the White Aryan Resistance movement and with skinhead groups.
BILL MOYERS: There is a question about Mazzella that was asked, actually, at the trial by Rick Cooper, who said, “I’d like to know why Mazzella can brag about everything he’s done and not be charged with one single thing.” That’s a good question.
MORRIS DEES: Well, I think that would be a question that would be better posed to prosecutors in the case ’cause it’s quite common. They grant immunity from prosecution to witnesses, even people who’ve come before congressional committees who are certainly guilty of items, in order to get at somebody up the ladder. And — you know, I started off by saying that I think that Mazzella might have borne some criminal responsibility for the things that he openly stated that he did to encourage these young men to do this, but he did it at the bequest-behest, I should say, of Tom Metzger. It’s almost like a brainwashing situation. Tom Metzger was like a father to Dave Mazzella. Dave Mazzella said that he’d die for Tom. I mean, he turned against his own parents to be with Tom, so how much of Dave Mazzella’s conduct that he’s criminally responsible for that would be — I’d have some question because it’s like, you know, the foot soldier who does what the general tells him to do.
BILL MOYERS: With all due respect, wasn’t your victory symbolic? Metzger says he’s not finished. We’ll be hearing from him for a long time to come.
MORRIS DEES: The purpose of the trial was not to put Metzger out of business in terms of him speaking. Whether Tom, you know, comes back-nobody can muzzle the guy, you know, and keep him from speaking out. If somebody wants to have him on their talk show, I mean, I guess they can. But since the trial, he hasn’t published any of his material and that’s been quite a while. He-you know, he’s lost his home and property. He’s got a judgment against him which we will persist in collecting.
BILL MOYERS: If he ever makes any money, he owes it to —
MORRIS DEES: Seraw, right. And not only that. If Metzger has a job, Seraw’s child gets one-fourth of every nickel that comes from that.
BILL MOYERS: Is Seraw’s family is Ethiopia now?
MORRIS DEES: No, it’s — fortunately, his son was able to come to the United States and is going to become a citizen and is going to be living with his uncle, Mr. Berhanu.
BILL MOYERS: How old is the boy?
MORRIS DEES: Now, he’s — I think he probably is turning eight or nine now. He’s very precocious and very bright, very smart. And I asked him — not long ago, I saw him. He’s learning to speak English very quickly and he said-he goes to school now, you know, in California. I don’t want to say exactly where he lives, but I said, ”What’re you going to be? What’re you going to be when you grow up?” He said, “President, maybe.” Defendants’ Press Conference
TOM METZGER: [Day 9] Well, we knew it was going to happen. We know what-we knew-well, what was set up from the very beginning. Nothing changes because we’re political soldiers and we continue.
I have planted my seeds. They’re already in the ground. A lot of them have already come to fruition. Now, I won’t be restricted any longer about necessarily trying to say, “Oh, don’t say these things. Don’t talk violent,” because I’ll be broke and under the Constitution, I can advocate violence now and nobody can sue me anymore, so all the things I’m accused of, that I didn’t do, now I’m totally free to do. Well, we’re going out to celebrate tonight.
REPORTER: What are you celebrating?
TOM METZGER: The movement, the white racist movement. The white separatist movement will not be stopped in the puny town of Portland. We’re too deep. We’re embedded now, don’t you under-stand? We’re in your colleges, we’re in your armies, we’re in your police forces. We’re in your technical areas, we’re in your banks.
Where do you think-why a lot of these skinheads disappeared? ‘Cause they grew their hair out, went to college. They’re going, they’ve got the program. We planted the seeds. There’s nothing — stopping Tom Metzger’s not going to change what’s going to happen in this country now. I just did my little bit along the way, like your great salmon. I got up there and laid the eggs and now, if I die, no problem.
This transcript was entered on April 30, 2015.
