SPLC Sues Leading Klan Group over Beating

[Sapphire Blue]

SPLC Sues Leading Klan Group over Beating

July 25, 2007 - The Southern Poverty Law Center today filed suit against the nation's second-largest Klan group and five Klansmen, saying two members were on a recruiting mission for the group in July 2006 when they savagely beat a teenage boy at a county fair in Kentucky.

The lawsuit claims that as part of an official recruiting drive organized by the leadership of the Imperial Klans of America (IKA), several members went to the Meade County Fairgrounds in Brandenburg, Ky., to hand out business cards and flyers advertising a "white-only" IKA function.

Unprovoked, two of the Klansmen at the fair began harassing a 16-year-old boy of Panamanian descent, calling him a "spic," according to the lawsuit. The boy, who stands 5-foot-3 and weighs just 150 pounds, was beaten to the ground and kicked by the Klansmen, one of whom is 6-foot-5 and 300 pounds. The beating left the boy with two cracked ribs, a broken left forearm, multiple cuts and bruises and jaw injuries requiring extensive dental repair.

"The defendants are members and high-ranking officials of one of the most violent white supremacist groups in America," said SPLC President Richard Cohen. "They promote violence and intimidation and call for the death of racial and ethnic minorities, homosexuals and so-called 'race traitors.' They targeted and viciously beat our client solely because he has brown skin."

The SPLC has documented a 40 percent rise in the number of hate groups since 2000 — an increase fueled by anti-immigration furor aimed largely at Latinos. The boy who was attacked is a U.S. citizen.


Continued @ http://www.splcenter.org/legal/news/article.jsp?site_area=2&aid=277

[Solly Mack]

1. k/r

it never fails...put someone like Bush in office and hate gets more vocal and more active

Reagan years weren't exactly a good time for people of color either

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

2. What brave men!

Kicking someone half your weight and over a foot shorter in height! :sarcasm:

[proud2BlibKansan]

3. The SPLC is one of the best anti-racism groups we have

And it pained me to see them criticized during the immigration battles last year.

[AspenRose]

4. "The boy who was attacked is a U.S. citizen."

Um...when are we going to do something about American, home-grown terrorists going after OTHER Americans?

*cue crickets*

[jojo54]

5. Two grown men against one 16 yr old boy.

Yeah, that's fair and balanced!!!!:sarcasm:

[Donnachaidh]

6. but it's typical for these racist bastards, isn't it?

Now if this had been a big guy who could knock either one of them on their asses, they would have turned tail and ran.