Kalamazoo white supremacy rally was organized by paid FBI informant, group says

A white supremacist rally in Kalamazoo last summer was organized and attended by a paid FBI informant, Hal Turner, the Southern Poverty Law Center said Thursday.[http://www.splcenter...]

Turner’s rally on Aug. 4 drew about 60 white supremacy supporters, sporting swastikas and Confederate flag motifs on their clothing. The rally cost the city of Kalamazoo more than $80,000 for police protection and tied up more than 400 officers from several police agencies. Four protesters were arrested at the rally.

Turner, a New Jersey-based Internet radio host and avowed racist who has called for the murder of federal judges, held the rally against what he called black crime in Kalamazoo. During the rally, Turner called for the “lynching” of blacks.

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), in a report on its blog, said it has confirmed that Turner was a paid informant for the FBI field office in Newark, N.J., for “years.” The report said the Law Center has confirmed the information “through numerous knowledgeable sources.”

“The FBI is not, and will never, confirm a source’s name,” said special agent Sean Quinn of the FBI field office in Newark. He said it is FBI policy not to confirm or deny the identity of confidential sources because it could put their lives in jeopardy.

Continued -The SPLC is a nationally recognized expert in tracking and reporting on hate groups and hate activity. The group publishes a quarterly magazine, the Intelligence Report, which is sent to more than 50,000 law enforcement agents nationwide. The group recently started a blog to track hate activity.

Mark Potok, director of the Intelligence Project at SPLC and author of the HateWatch blog piece, told the Michigan Messenger in an e-mail: “We are stating that allegation as fact. I cannot detail our sourcing any more than I have in the piece, but I note that the police procedure/criminologist experts I quoted in the first piece also treated Turner’s informant status as fact. Again, we’ve now confirmed that.”

In a January report, the SPLC had first alleged that Turner was a paid informer, based on e-mails retrieved by hackers from Turner’s Web site. One of those e-mails was a communication with his FBI handler and a New Jersey state trooper reporting a planned assassination attempt against Sen. Russ Feingold, D-Wis.  [http://www.splcenter...]

Following the January disclosure, Turner abruptly dropped out of the white nationalist movement, threads on the white supremacy Web site Vanguard News Network show. In addition to dropping out of the movement, he also stopped broadcasting his Internet show. However, in February, he returned with a defense against the allegations he was an informant for the FBI. As proof, he said the FBI would never have allowed him to hold rallies that cost local governments thousands of dollars.

But the FBI’s Quinn said, “Something like that, a rally, in and of itself is not illegal. There is not much anybody can do to stop something like that. …That does not mean, by any stretch of the imagination we approve of it.”

Kalamazoo officials, including Mayor Bobby Hopewell, City Manager Kenneth Collard and police leaders, did not return numerous calls for comment.

Michigan State Police spokesperson Melody Kindraka referred questions to the FBI. But a sergeant at the Battle Creek post of the Michigan State Police said that the post, which provided officers for the rally, was unaware of Turner’s status. “No, we did not (know),” the officer, who did not want his name used, said after a silence.

During the Kalamazoo rally, Turner called for lynching blacks and politicians.

“We are prepared to go back to what worked in the 1950s and if they don’t reign in the criminal behavior we will start lynching blacks in this city this year!” Turner roared through a sound system set up in the Kalamazoo Department of Public Safety parking lot. “So the choice is yours, black Kalamazoo: are you going to reign in your criminal hoodlums or are you going to find them swinging from a rope? Open season on white people is over.