[Congressional Record (Bound Edition), Volume 145 (1999), Part 5] [Extensions of Remarks] [Pages 6759-6760] [From the U.S. Government Publishing Office, www.gpo.gov]EXPOSING RACISM ______ HON. BENNIE G. THOMPSON of mississippi in the house of representatives Thursday, April 15, 1999 Mr. THOMPSON of Mississippi. Mr. Speaker, in my continuing efforts to document and expose racism in America, I submit the following articles into the Congressional Record. Justice Department Announces Arrests in Indiana Church Burnings (By Rex W. Huppke) Indianapolis (AP).--A man charged with seven Indiana church fires may be responsible for up to 50 such arsons across the Midwest and South, including Mississippi. Probable cause affidavits accompanying the formal charges brought against Jay Scott Ballinger paint a picture of a 36- year-old who burned churches at random while traveling with his girlfriend, an exotic dancer. The U.S. Department of Justice announced Tuesday that Ballinger had been arrested and charged with setting seven Indiana church fires dating back to 1994. The Yorktown man was being held in federal custody in Indianapolis while a multi-agency investigation continues. Charged with one count each of arson are Angela Wood, 24, of Atlanta, Ga., and Donald A. Puckett, 37, of Lebanon, Ind. Wood is in federal custody in Macon, Ga., and Puckett is being held in Indianapolis. [[Page 6760]] Wood has admitted to serving as a lookout during some of the other fires Ballinger allegedly set, according to the affidavit, and both Wood and Puckett are believed to have helped Ballinger burn down the Concord Church of Christ in Lebanon, Ind., in 1994. U.S. Attorney Judith A. Stewart would not give information on a motive for the arsons. She said that because the charges are part of a federal criminal complaint she couldn't comment on the investigation until formal charges were brought before a grand jury. All three arrested are white and most of the church burnings in Indiana have involved rural churches with predominately white congregations. ``When someone sets fire to a house of worship, they are not just setting fire to a building, but to an entire community,'' said Bill Lann Lee, assistant attorney general for the Justice Department's civil rights division. The arrests stemmed from the work of the National Church Arson Task Force, established in 1996 after a series of fires at black churches in the South. An affidavit from a Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agent says that searches of Ballinger's central Indiana residence turned up a gasoline container and satanic books and writings. Also found were credit card statements showing purchases made in Indiana and other states on or about the dates of church fires in those areas. The affidavit says Ballinger admitted to setting ``a total of approximately thirty to fifty'' church fires in Indiana and other states. Jerry Singer, a special agent with the ATF, said the fires involve 11 states, including Indiana, Kentucky, Tennessee, Ohio, Mississippi, Georgia and Alabama, all of which were mentioned in the affidavits. Singer would not identify the other four states involved. He said that in his 21 years with the ATF, this is the largest serial arson case he's seen. The affidavit details the events that led to Ballinger's arrest: On Feb. 6, 1999, a church in Brookville, Ohio, was burned. Three days later, a detective from the Ball State University Police Department in Muncie overheard an emergency radio call for medical assistance at the Ballinger residence in Yorktown, a few miles west of Muncie. The officer recognized the last name from a previous church arson investigation. He went to Ball Memorial Hospital in Muncie and interviewed Ballinger's father, who said his son was badly burned when he came home early in the morning on Feb. 7. The officer notified federal investigators of the incident at the hospital. During interviews with law enforcement officials Feb. 19-21, Ballinger admitted to the various arsons. Ballinger had at least one prior offense--a 1993 arrest on charges of contributing to the delinquency of a minor. According to court records, he was arrested near Daleville for allowing two teen-agers to consume alcohol in his car. A warrant was issued for his arrest in Delaware County in 1994 after he failed to show up at a court hearing on those charges. One of the affidavits in the church arson case said that Puckett admitted that he, Ballinger and Wood set fire to the Concord Church of Christ in Lebanon, Ind., in January 1994. According to the affidavit, Ballinger and Wood met at Puckett's home, mixed several flammable liquids together then left to find a church to burn. They picked the Concord Church of Christ at random. Wood allegedly wrote satanic symbols on the porch, Puckett sprayed the flammable mixture and Ballinger lit the fire. The church was destroyed. ____ Jury Awards $720,000 to Couple in Cross-burning Case Chicago (AP).--A federal jury has awarded $720,000 in damages to a black couple whose suburban home was targeted by a white neighbor with a cross-burning. After a one-day hearing, jurors deliberated about an hour Monday before deciding in favor of Andre Bailey and Sharon Henderson of Blue Island, who are married, and who filed the lawsuit against Thomas Budlove Jr. Budlove has failed to respond to the lawsuit or appear in court, prompting a judge to rule last year that his conduct amounted to a tacit admission to the cross burning. The incident occurred less than a year after Bailey and Henderson moved into the rented bungalow in the predominantly white neighborhood in September 1995. The couple alleged Budlove regularly shouted racial slurs at them from his property. Their tires were slashed, windows were broken, their dog wounded by gunfire and leaves burned on their front porch. On June 13, 1996, Bailey said that as he stepped from his house to start his car, he was confronted by a 6-foot cross burning in the yard. Lawyers for the couple and their two children sought at least $300,000 in damages from Budlove. Attorneys for the family told the jury they doubted Budlove has that amount of money. But they urged the jury to send a message that hate crimes won't be tolerated. ____ Trial Begins in Racist Plot Case Little Rock, AR (AP).--Prosecutors opened their case against two white supremacists charged with murder by calling a former associate who said one suspect linked Jews and blacks to insects and animals. Chevie Kehoe, 26, of Colville, Wash., and Danny Lee, 26, of Yukon, Okla., are also charged with racketeering and conspiracy. Kehoe and Lee are accused of using a campaign of violence to set up a whites-only nation in the Pacific Northwest and could get the death penalty if convicted. John Shults, a convict who says he has left the white supremacy movement, testified Monday that he joined Kehoe in the Northwest. ``We would make such comments as `The Jews are nothing but maggots. The Jews should be exterminated.' . . . Black people were the beasts of the field, how they were meant to be lower than the white man, how we used them for caretaking,'' Shults said. Members of the mostly black jury were expressionless. Shults also said Kehoe spoke of executing judges to spark a revolt. The crimes associated with the alleged plot include a 1996 bombing at City Hall in Spokane, Wash.; shootouts with Ohio police; the slayings of two people in Idaho; and the drownings of a white Arkansas family of three. U.S. Attorney Dan Stripling told jurors that Kehoe's beliefs were based on those of Robert Mathews, the founder of the Aryan Nations white supremacist group. Mathews was killed in 1984 when his hideout caught fire during a shootout with federal agents in Washington state. The prosecutor said Kehoe and Lee robbed the Arkansas family in 1996 and killed them by taping plastic bags over their heads, weighing them down with rocks and throwing them into a bayou. Later, the defendants told Kehoe's parents that the family was on ``a liquid diet,'' Stripling said. The judge has issued a gag order in the case, but Lee's mother, Lea Graham, said her son is innocent and no racist. ____ National Report Describes 12 Organizations in Wisconsin as Hate Groups (By the Associated Press) Twelve Wisconsin organizations are being described as hate groups in a quarterly journal published by the Southern Poverty Law Center. The ``Intelligence Report'' listed six groups described as neo-Nazi. They are the Euro-American Alliance in Milwaukee; the New Order in Milwaukee; the Knights of Freedom in Sullivan; and World Church of the Creator in Milwaukee, New Berlin and Franklin. Also listed were two Ku Klux Klan groups, the American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in Mercer and Imperial Klans of America, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in Adams. Two skinhead groups listed were the Hammerskin Nation in Hartland and Oi! Boys in Kenosha. One Christian Identity church, the Wisconsin Church of Israel in Appleton, was named. Christian Identity describes ``a religion that is fundamentally racist and anti-Semitic,'' the report said. Also included was one black separatist group, a Nation of Islam affiliate in Milwaukee. Black separatists are organizations ``whose ideologies include tenets of racially- based hatred,'' the report said. Wisconsin had 10 hate groups listed by the journal in 1997, said Joseph Roy Sr., intelligence project director for the law center in Montgomery, Ala. The law center listed 537 hate groups and group chapters nationwide engaging in racist behavior in 1998 up from 474 the previous year. Officials of nine of the Wisconsin groups listed could not be reached for comment. Donald V. Clerkin, 60, of Greendale, chairman of the Euro- American Alliance, called the organization a ``white nationalist'' group concerned with, among other things, the threat immigration poses to ``Western culture, European culture in North America.'' ``I consider it a badge of honor,'' he said of the listing. In Mercer, Michael McQueeney, 43, calls himself the national grand dragon for the National Knights of the Ku Klux Klan-- Not the American Knights cited in the report. He disputed the hate-group label. ``I dislike a lot of blacks, Jews and homosexuals because of what they're doing in this country, but there's a lot of good Jews out there, and there's a lot of good black people out there,'' he said. At Muhammad Mosque No. 3 in Milwaukee, part of the Nation of Islam, minister William Muhammad, 40, called it ``totally false and slanderous'' to call his denomination a hate group. ``The Nation of Islam teaches love--love of God, love of justice and love of self,'' Muhammad said. ``Our goal and purpose is the upliftment of our people--the moral, spiritual, social and economic development and cultivation of our people.'' ____________________