Jeff Berry, Leader of Indiana KKK is hospitalized after being beaten nearly to death by his son at a BBQ. The local paper is calling him a former leader but I don't believe he ever left. This is the man that has terrorized the area where I live. The local coverage is
here.
Tolerance.org has more on
Jeff Berry. Both the father and son have a long history and rap sheets in this area. I know them best from their trips through my Church's parking lot to toss eggs and yell "Papists must die!" after mass lets out. You see after they run off the minorities in an area, they have to turn on the Catholics for their fun. He's been in and out of jail quite a bit with occurances calming down while he's locked up. I once thought he was just a local problem till I saw him on a Discovery channel special on hate groups, as they discussed how he has done the most, in their view, to re-energize a dying Klan.
I've encountered Jeff in the local Taco Bell, Wendy's and Kroger. In Taco Bell, he sat next to my son and I in the company of two other men and used words like "Nigger" sprinkled through their conversation as they discussed going down to Georgia the next weekend to "stir things up." At first, I didn't want to be intimidated by him but it quickly got to the point that I didn't want to hear anymore nor have my son hear, as they were talking loudly. I noticed other people had gotten up and moved to the other side of the restaurant, making it much more crowded over there than when Jeff and his friends sat down. Just two weeks ago they peppered Auburn, IN with mispelled all CAPS leaflets promoting their group.
The leaflet said: "The Cape Crusaiders rides once again in the state of Indiana. Family morals need to be brought back to our family, values of Christianity and the Bible. We need to teach that homosexuality is wrong and not accepted in our community. Lets not forget about the patriotism of our country and the Pledge of Allegiance to our flag...illegal immagrants wil soon have control of our homeland." The brochure asks people to send $16 to Box 170; Albion, IN 46701 to support the Klan and receive it's newsletter. It was signed by Invisible_Knights311@yahoo.com..
In 1999, Berry held a Louisville, Kentucky, TV reporter and a camerawoman hostage in his home after the reporter informed him, during an interview, that the station planned to broadcast remarks by a disillusioned former Klansman; Berry would not free the crew until they surrendered their tapes of the interview. The reporter and camerawoman were held for two days at gun point. He was subsequently sued regarding the false imprisonment by the Southern Poverty Law Center, and lost. Furthermore, he faces criminal charges for various cases of harassment and other offenses. In December 2001, Berry was sentenced to seven years in prison for conspiring to commit criminal confinement. Berry was released from prison in 2004.
I know it's not right to wish ill of other people but it's really hard in this case. Hopefully, he will have a long recovery forcing him to miss some summer Klan rallies but will survive and turn his life around after this near brush with death.
*Updated with news of Jeff's hostage taking past and about the leaflet distributed in Auburn, IN recently.* Ironically, it wasn't the people of color that Jeff crusaded against nor the Catholics or Jews he hated that brought him near death. It was his own white child he raised to hate. Jeff is still in critical condition with head injuries. I'm on jury duty from 7/1 to 9/30 in the county this occured in, I wonder if this case will come up?