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LOS ANGELES (AP) — Tom Metzger, the infamous former Ku Klux Klan chief who rose to prominence within the 1980s whereas selling white separatism and stoking racial violence, has died at age 82.
Riverside County Division of Public Well being spokesman Jose Arballo Jr., mentioned Metzger died Nov. four at a talented nursing facility in Hemet. The trigger was Parkinson’s illness, Arballo mentioned Thursday.
The previous grand dragon of the California chapter of the Ku Klux Klan turned one in every of racism’s most outstanding figures after he left that group within the 1980s to kind the White Aryan Resistance motion.
He finally was pushed into the shadows and monetary wreck, nonetheless, for his group’s position within the 1988 beating dying of Ethiopian faculty scholar Mulugeta Seraw in Portland, Oregon.
Seraw’s household received a $12.5 million judgment towards Metzger, his group and others in 1990 following a trial by which a recording was performed of Metzger praising the killers for performing what he referred to as their “civic obligation.”
Metzger misplaced his San Diego-area dwelling, his tv restore enterprise and different belongings. Though left penniless, Metzger continued to provide a racist e-newsletter for years and operated a racist hotline, taking calls personally.
He posted frequently on his group’s web site till only a few months in the past, based on a short biography asserting his dying on the web site. Metzger’s dying was first reported by the Instances of San Diego.
“Tom Metzger spent many years working towards core American values as one of the seen hardcore white supremacists within the nation,” Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan A. Greenblatt informed The Related Press. “All through his life he engaged in a variety of hateful actions from spreading anti-Semitic and racist rhetoric to launching vigilante border patrols as a California Klansman to recruiting skinheads to the white supremacist trigger.”
The killing of Seraw left racial wounds in Portland that proceed to this present day, mentioned Randy Blazak, a sociology professor at Portland State College who has written extensively about hate teams.
“We turned often called Skinhead Metropolis, we had racist skinheads and anti-racist skinheads doing battle within the streets, which is kind of a precursor of antifa and the Proud Boys,” he mentioned, referencing these concerned in latest violence which have gripped town.
Born in Warsaw, Indiana, on April 9, 1938, Thomas Linton Metzger served within the Military from 1956 to 1959 earlier than settling in California and a profession as a TV repairman.
He joined the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan within the mid-1970s, rising to the position of grand dragon of California earlier than leaving to kind the White Aryan Resistance within the early 1980s.
He ran for Congress from northern San Diego County within the early ’80s, profitable the Democratic Get together main however shedding by a landslide within the basic election after Democrats and Republicans united towards him.
He turned a outstanding media determine throughout these years, showing on TV discuss reveals, organizing white supremacist demonstrations and cross burnings and promising a white civil battle that may end in “blood within the streets.”
His son, John Metzger, and different white racists appeared on Geraldo Rivera’s TV discuss present in 1988 and brawled with Roy Innis and different Black civil rights activists. Rivera suffered a damaged nostril in the course of the televised mayhem, which created a nationwide furor.
Tom Metzger’s downfall started after he despatched one in every of his White Aryan Resistance members to Oregon to prepare an area Nazi skinhead group. Inside a month native skinheads had crushed to dying the 28-year-old Seraw with a baseball bat. They later admitted they singled him out as a result of he was Black.
The civil judgment stemming from the killing was devastating for Metzger, mentioned Elden Rosenthal, one of many attorneys who represented the Seraw household.
“We chased him for 20 years. We collected cash from him for 20 years, which is the restrict beneath Oregon legislation,” Rosenthal mentioned. “The objective of the case was to place him out of enterprise and to impression his standing within the white supremacy motion and we thought we achieved each of these issues.”
One other lawyer, James McElroy of San Diego, organized the sale of Metzger’s home to a Latino household to assist fulfill the judgment.
“Poetic justice,” mentioned McElroy, who went on to undertake Seraw’s 7-year-old son.
Though Metzger has lengthy been recognized as a white supremacist, he truly shunned that time period, saying he was a white separatist and didn’t have an issue with Blacks who didn’t work together with whites.
Nonetheless, the racial hatred he fomented continues to this present day, McElroy and Rosenthal mentioned.
“On the time, I checked out him as completely on the perimeter,” Rosenthal mentioned. “What we have now sadly realized during the last 30 years is that there’s a complete lot of people that share his views. … On the time it appeared fringy, now it appears a bit horrifying.”
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Related Press Writers Gillian Flaccus in Portland, Oregon, and Elliot Spagat in San Diego contributed to this story.
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