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

[Tobiasism]

Strain said, adding, "I can't imagine anyone feeling endangered or at risk by any one of these kooks."

That said, a woman was murdered by these kooks. There is no ignoring morons with guns.

[helleborine]

It's a pity someone had to die, but on the plus side, there's now a good reason to put these sociopaths in jail for a long time.

[moreupnorth]

"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 Mr. Strain one of them just killed an anyone. I find your statement to be one of the most unintelligent unprofessional IDIOTIC things I have ever heard from a law enforcement officer in the wake of a murder he is investigating.

To put it another more simple way sir would be to say "Because these folks have no intellect you have nothing to fear from them even though they just murdered someone!"

Wow talk about someone having an unimpressive IQ level. I guess thay hire cops of equal IQ as the criminals down there!

[smoo]

"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."

Okay... but some woman is dead.

WTF

[Axel01]

Sheriff’s downplay of the crime is even more indicative that a crime itself. It’s a sign of a decaying, detrimental mentality.
A mentality which tolerates KKK members as silly, harmless kooks; considers those who endorse separatism as national heroes – only because they are “one of us”.
A mentality that is accusing of terrorism someone who was a seating in the same board of a welfare organization with a current professor of a prominent university that was once upon a time a member of a radical organization - only because he's not “one of us”.

[elantiq]

To find out where these hate groups are check the link at Southern Poverty Law Center:

http://www.splcenter.org/intel/map/hate.jsp

[El]

cretins

[1differentdrummer]

Still think we don't have an education problem?

[OutsiderSA]

I wonder what the initiation ceremony entails for women? I can only guess. If it was that dude in the pic no wonder she backed out.

[jean22]

," Strain said, adding, "I can't imagine anyone feeling endangered or at risk by any one of these kooks."

A woman has been fatally shot by one of these kooks yet Strain can't "imagine anyone feeling endangered or at risk".....???!!!!

It doesn't take a high IQ to kill. He's a sheriff does he really not know that? Or is he just pretending to not know it?

[Benthead]

By "anyone," I assume the sheriff means anyone in the public who might be worried this Klan group would target them--African Americans, Jews, etc.

In other words, if you are alarmed at the prospect that a Klan cell has appeared in your county, these are not formidable Klan activists. (Clearly you should worry if you were planning to hang out with these cretins.)

[naeldwyck]

They don't have to be formidable to be quite dangerous. Moreover, if they'd been musl1m$, or bl@ck, I have no doubt their links to a larger organization, and the necessity to f!ght that organization would not be underplayed by law enforcement or the media in the way it is with these people.

[MontanaHome]

Exactly! That is the one line that's sticking in my head after reading this. Appalling and clueless.

[MurrayAbraham]

"I can't imagine anyone feeling endangered or at risk by any one of these kooks."

What the @## is this guy talking about. It doesn't take brains to pull a trigger, in fact the less you have the easier it is. The fact that this woman was apparently a recruit doesn't change a thing to the outcome:they executed her. (Which seems to indicate she may have changed her mind when confronted with these wackos.)

[wonder6789]

The future of the Republican party, folks.

[Americatortures]

GOP leadership!!

[gr8abz]

Yet another reason why I stay far, far north of the Mason Dixon line. They're back in the 1860's down there.

[RobHughey]

There are more white power and KKK related hate groups in Pennsylvania and New York than any other state in the United States. I seem to recall California as being third.

Don't relegate hate as a "Southern" thing. It's offensive to those of us actually working to make the south more Progressive and is ignorant of the fact that hate has to be fought EVERYWHERE in this country.

I'd recommend checking out the Southern Poverty Law Center. They have great resources on hate groups all across our nation.

[bbridges1962]

Way to go, gr8abz, you just put everybody that lives south of the Mason-Dixon line in the Klan. I guess that means all white folks are in the klan and all black folks are in the Black Panthers, huh? It's people like you who tag and bag people into groups. Just for the record, I don't know anyone who is in any groups, but thanks for the stereotyping.

[POLINUT]

Hmmm...anyone ever stop to count the number of times "terrorist group" is used in US media whenever referring to the KKK and other US hate groups?

MSM is quick to use it for other groups (Weather Underground, Black Panthers, etc.) yet the label is SUSPICIOUSLY missing when referring to the KKK and other right-wing groups who spew hate and threaten others.

Pay even more attention to what is not said. The silence is deafening.

[naeldwyck]

Exactly, these people are, as in the above, called unthreatening kooks, low IQ, crooks, sociopaths; but they're white, so of course they're not terrorists. Oh, and of course, they're individuals, a "small group", and the like, because of course there is no such thing as a white supremacist movement that needs proper eradication.

[Axel01]

I can smell another librul scam here: ya’ll want to smear good people of Oklahoma ‘cuz Palin/McCain got in that proud, real American state the highest percentage in the whole US of A.

Folks there stick to their traditions, that’s all - at least they’re not elitists & communists, right? Besides, inbreeding keeps the race pure.

Yeeeeehaw!

[don]

They call themselves Sooners after the proud tradition of jumping the gun on the land rush which took away land promised to the indians. When the people who waited for the offical start of the giveaway arrived, the were greeted by the Sooners who had cheated and staked out the best land for themselves.

[67yrolfe]

“All eight of the suspects live in neighboring Washington Parish, but Bonnett said he couldn't immediately identify their hometowns.”>>>>>>>>>>>>>Typical Louisiana justice at work. He didn’t want to identify their hometowns! I’m surprised this story even made it out of Louisiana but I’m glad it did. If it would have happened in Washington Parish, it wouldn’t have made it out. I was born and raised in Washington Parish but left there in ‘01, thank God! These people are more than just kooks and there’s going to be a whole lot more of them rearing their ugly head now. But law enforcement will continue to play all this down if they can. I doubt if any of them will serve much jail time – even the bum charged with 2nd degree murder. Sounds like 1st degree to me! But they’re KKK members from Washington Parish and therefore safe from Louisiana justice!