Female KKK Recruit Shot And Killed As She Left Initiation Ritual

COVINGTON, La. — An Oklahoma woman invited to a rural Louisiana campsite for a Ku Klux Klan initiation ritual was shot and killed after she asked to be taken back to town, the sheriff of a New Orleans suburb said Tuesday.

Eight people were arrested after authorities found the woman's body hidden under some brush, on the side of a road several miles from the remote campsite where the initiation was planned.

Investigators found weapons, several flags and six Klan robes at the campsite, St. Tammany Parish Sheriff Jack Strain said in a news release.

Strain said the woman, whose identity was not released, was recruited over the Internet to participate in the ritual and then return to her home state to find other members for the white supremacist group.

But Strain said the group's leader, Raymond "Chuck" Foster, 44, shot and killed the woman Sunday after a fight broke out when she tried to leave. Foster was charged with second-degree murder and is being held without bond.

Capt. George Bonnett, a spokesman for the sheriff's department, said he didn't know what the initiation involved.

"We haven't completely sorted out if they finished the initiation," he said. "I assume that they had started it, but I don't know if they were finished."

Bonnett said he doesn't know if Foster has an attorney. He also said that in three years with the department, this was the first time he had seen a case involving the KKK.

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Seven others _ five men and two women from 20 to 30 years old _ were charged with obstruction of justice and were held on $500,000 bond at the St. Tammany Parish jail. All eight of the suspects live in neighboring Washington Parish, but Bonnett said he couldn't immediately identify their hometowns.

Authorities said some of the suspects tried to conceal the crime by burning the woman's belongings along with other items at the campsite.

Strain said the woman arrived in the Slidell, La., area last week and was met by two people connected to the Klan group. She was taken over the weekend to the campsite near Sun, La., on the banks of the Pearl River. Sun is about 60 miles north of New Orleans.

Authorities said the group's members called themselves the "Dixie Brotherhood."

"The IQ level of this group is not impressive, to be kind," Strain said, adding, "I can't imagine anyone feeling endangered or at risk by any one of these kooks."

Mark Pitcavage, directive of investigative research for the Anti-Defamation League, said the Dixie Brotherhood appears to be a small, loosely organized group of people.

"This is not what I would call an established Klan group," he said. "The Klan has a pretty high association with violence. Some of these guys are just crooks, sociopaths."

Comments

[ZimboChick]

She had just come for the finger foods....

[jonjon66]

Dixie Brotherhoo­d?.....whe­re's Joe Scarborough defending their rights?

[GreyWolfSC]

I want to feel some sympathy for those involved in this but I just can't. If you intentionally want to join a group that exists to spread hate I can't be sorry they killed you.

[SurrealPumpkin]

That's a heavy price you ask for a mistake.

[AG64]

Time to deconstruct this whole "...a group that exists to spread hate..." If we really look at who joins the KKK, the Taliban, urban street gangs, you name it, it's clear that we're not dealing with any sngle ideology but rather clusters of irredeemable individual pathology. Once you have that it doesn't matter what form it takes - whether they're wearing hoods or hoodies or turbans, they're all simply motivated to undermine and destroy whatever progressive impulses exist around them. The form of the ideology is just the local flavor, costume, species, whatever metaphor does it for you. So if you really want to do something about this, look at the little ones before it's too late. Stop abuse and neglect, improve education, deal with domestic violence, whatever it takes, in the US and wherever else we can. (And yes, with a vengeance go after thought-contagion spreading "leaders" such as Palin, Limbaugh, etc. who exploit these pitiful creatures. But remember, if there are no willing recruits, the contagion dies out.)

[CSE]

"clusters of irredeemable individual pathology.­..they're all simply motivated to undermine and destroy whatever progressive impulses exist around them."

I don't think your preamble successfully deconstructed anything..­.yet your conclusion touched on some solutions.

The driving group dynamic often argued centers around "liberty" and the desire for it - even if definitions of liberty evoke differing imagery in the cooperating individual.

One enemy of liberty is oppression - and this oppression only need be perceived. Street gangs feed from the oppression of poverty or ethnic disassociation, volatile religious groups arise from the oppressed masses (comfortable in the notion that their reward will come in an afterlife where their oppressors will suffer eternal punishment) and volatile "hate groups" suffer the oppression of ignorance in believing their entire race suffers the degradation of others. Odd as it sounds, they all seek liberty from their perceived demons believing a better life lies beyond.

The groupings of middle America that steadfastly oppose what they see as the dangers of liberalism or progressive government and votes in "faith and fear" (a base of ignorance that the GOP plays upon due in large part to their number) see their liberties being curtailed. It all sounds rather odd, and is again dependent upon an individual's perception of "liberty", but the powerful attraction of the desire for liberty however perceived is very base, very strong and needs be understood.

[truth2008]

Thanks John and Sarah, you help to incite the fring groups, you should be proud!

[DuPageDem]

This bunch took it literally when they heard the Right was organizing a circular firing squad.

[liviapeacock]

Let these people kill each other all they want. Good riddance.

Same with gun owners who kill each other. fine with me.

DARWIN RULES!

[MalloMel]

Gun owners all too often kill innocent people. Maybe Darwin was wrong. Do you think?

[The Lorax]

I heart Darwin

[deliriousgod]

she must have been halfway through swearing in on all the things she was supposed to hate when they got to the one she was and then she realised what that poem meant.

[alainv]

Bam ! straight to hell . I personally would like to drop a cruise missile on the whole stinking lot of em. Two down. How many to go?

[SurrealPumpkin]

None, unless it involves a judge and jury. Let us not follow the example of those whose hate is distorting their patriotism.

[Middleclassvotingbloc]

Self Distruction of the hate mongers. They all will come out of the closet and be distroyed by their own hate, this includes the talking heads on radio, the likes of Cunningham and Hannity.

[franklin opt]

"The IQ level of this group is not impressive, to be kind," Strain said, adding, "I can't imagine anyone feeling endangered or at risk by any one of these kooks."

I learned as a teen not to turn my back on the some of the dullest people around me. Some (not all) are more likely to behave irrationally and do the unthinkable.

[deliriousgod]

you don't have to be smart to be dangerous. quite the contrary

[vonniewit]

Palin's "real" Americans

[mooses4obama]

LOL 8^D

[Gmoney1]

Did he say ..."SOME of these guys are just crooks and sociopaths"??? then what are the rest, decent , peaceful people who want social order - I don't think so - who writes this stuff - some people need to thinks before they speak -

[Sintari]

What I inferred was that he meant ALL of them were kooks, but that these particular people are just kooks and not Ku Klux Klan-affiliated kooks.

[HC4BO]

Just what I was about to type ...

All of them are dimwits ...

[CaptainObvious]

"The IQ level of this group is not impressive, to be kind," Strain said, adding, "I can't imagine anyone feeling endangered or at risk by any one of these kooks."

Well, except for that woman right before she was murdered??!?!?

Mark Pitcavage, directive of investigative research for the Anti-Defamation League, said the Dixie Brotherhood appears to be a small, loosely organized group of people.

"This is not what I would call an established Klan group," he said. "The Klan has a pretty high association with violence. Some of these guys are just crooks, sociopaths­."

Yep - move along folks - nothing to see here....

[bby328]

What ah Country.

[SurrealPumpkin]

My America is about Freedom of Speech, so I won't deny you your hate spewings,
My America is about people being equal, so I feel pity for a woman who paid a very high price for making a mistake,
My America is about due process, so I won't join in calls to send undesirables far away with out trial,
My America is about the dignity of humanity.

This is why I voted for Barack Obama, This is why I voted.
This is why I reach out to all to work towards a better world where, if we can not manage to love, we can feel affection and concern for each other.

Let others be hateful, I refuse the pleasure.