Reply #13: KKK and neo-Nazis and "militia" groups in Wisconsin

[lindawye]

Here is s summary of what I know... Not much, but I am checking on it.

In 1991 or 1992, Ken Petersen of Janesville, WI, who had been involved for some time with the KKK -- he called himself "Grand Dragon of the National Knights of Ku Klux Klan" -- leased some rural property along the Sugar River in Avon Township in Rock County south of Brodhead from Nellie (mother) and Brian (son) Carey. Petersen and his group of followers, some of whom identified themselves as "skinheads from Milwaukee," hung out there for less than two weeks. Township officials came down hard on the Careys because of all the junk and trash littering their property and lining the road between their residence in a tiny camping trailer and the actual Klan camp site. While the Klan was there (they arrived a couple of days before Labor Day weekend), a cross was mysteriously burned in the front yard of the only black man who lived in Avon who happened to be married to a white woman. I visited the Klan site the day before the cross burning. I can state unequivocally from seeing, touching, smelling the cross burned and from watching local television video of Petersen's Janesville-area cross burnings that 1) there was a lot of old dimensional lumber lying around the Klan camp that looked as if it might be the same as that used in the construction of the cross; and 2) that cross resembled in every way, shape and form the ones Petersen had burned in the Janesville cross-burnings. During Labor Day weekend, shots were fired at the camp site (probably a teenager), the Klan's sign was burned down twice, and a neighbor had a barn fire. After a couple of weeks of harassment, the Klan packed up and left the area. Also of note, about a mile from the Klan camp as the crow flies there was a Posse Comitatus compound, complete with a helicopter landing pad. When I asked Petersen if his decision to lease property from the Careys had anything to do with the presence nearby of the Posse compound, he responded, "I guess everyone knows about them... We have great respect for our brothers in the Posse." (Actually, not everyone did know about the Posse presence in the small community.)

Last fall I learned of the listing of Monroe as home to a chapter of the KKK from someone who had seen it on the Southern Poverty Law Center. I looked up the KKK web site, looked for information about the guy listed as the head of the chapter on the web site, and started asking former and current law enforcement officers about it. I also talked to a number of community residents, looked up my old articles, and talked to a number of residents of Monroe and other small Green County communities. Within two weeks of my starting to check it out, the Klan closed the P.O. Box and shut down the web site. I also did a little driving tour of the Town of Avon, just to refresh my memory. At a truck stop down the road where I stopped to use the bathroom, I found racist hate literature from the Aryan Nations in Hayden Lake, Idaho, and Kingdom Ministries in Harrison, Arkansas. Friends of mine in the village of Juda did not know who there might have sympathies in that direction.

I also heard a rumor that one or more Green County law enforcement officers were members of or sympathetic to the Monroe KKK. In trying to trace that down, I have so far not found anything solid. I have heard of some guys being part of a "Red Shirts" group in or around New Glarus. I have also heard that a family with biracial children in rural Green County has been racially harassed. I have not gotten any further information about that. Two law enforcement officials independently suggested to me that a prominent church leader in Monroe might have sympathies if not outright connections to the KKK and similar groups.

Several weeks ago a large, spray-painted swastika appeared on a bridge in rural Blanchardville. According to one college student at home in the area, it had been there for about a month and his mother had reported it to police but it was still there. Within two weeks of my finding it, taking pictures of it, and checking with neighbors about it, it was "erased" and painted over. I will continue to check this out as well.

I would really appreciate anyone who knows anything about these events/groups getting in touch with me. As a professional journalist, I would prefer sources who can be on record, but understand this is a sensitive and difficult subject, and, of course, I would respect any wish for confidentiality.

Thanks!

Linda Wyeth