Dallas Morning News
March 8, 1990 (23A)

Dallas has not deterred all racist skinheads, police say

Tracy Everbach
Federal Beat

Five Dallas-area white supremacist skinheads were convicted
last week of civil rights violations. Jubilant federal
prosecutors proclaimed a victory that would send a warning to
young racists across the nation.

After the March 1 verdict, local police -- expecting
retaliation for the conviction -- watched for racially
motivated skinhead acts of violence. As of Wednesday, none had
been reported.

But just two days _before_ the verdict was announced,
Richardson police arrested seven skinheads on suspicion of
threatening to kill an African-American woman and breaking the
windshield of her car.

"There are still racist skinheads in the Dallas area --
unfortunately," said Detective Truly Holmes of the Dallas
Police Department.

The detective spent more than a year investingating the
Confederate Hammerskins, the neo-Nazi racist group whose
leaders were convicted last week.

Detective Holmes said that within two weeks of the trial's
opening Feb. 20, Dallas police received reports of attacks on
interracial couples and minorities. Police arrested several
skinheads in connection with the assaults.

On Feb. 24 a gang of white youths suspected of being skinheads
attacked an African-American man in a downtown parking lot,
sending him to a hospital.

The 45-year-old man said the incident began about 8 p.m. Seven
or eight young men -- all with shaved heads -- approached him
in the lot at Cadiz and Ervay streets and accused him of
breaking into a truck, the man said. He said that when he
denied breaking into the gray Nissan Pathfinder, the youths
struck him in the head with a pistol, causing a gash that
required stitches.

They beat him and "hollered 'nigger' at me," the victim said.

In Richardson, a small group of skinheads is suspected of
recent acts of violence. Two skinheads were arrested for
aggravated assault after they attacked one of their own
members, said police Capt. David Golden.

The captain said he hopes the federal trial verdict
demonstrates that "we, along with society, are not going to
accept any kind of violence toward any group."

Mark Briskman, regional director of the Anti-Defamation League
of B'nai B'rith, believes the attack on the Richardson woman
last week was the work of a racist skinhead group called
Confederate White Vikings.

He fears that the Vikings might continue violence that the
Hammerskins once wrought in Dallas. Trial testimony revealed
that the Hammerskins chased and beat minorities in a park,
vandalized a Jewish temple and community center with
anti-Semitic graffiti and bullets, and plotted to pump lethal
gas into a synagogue.

The Anti-Defamation League believes that the Vikings have
about 28 members, some of whom are former Hammerskins, Mr.
Briskman said.

Detective Holmes would not name a group in the recent skinhead
violence in Dallas. He said police believe there is an
organized group of about 30 racist skinheads in the Dallas
area.

These days, police are certain to emphasize the term "racist"
skinheads, because there are skinhead groups in the Dallas
area that do not embrace racism or white supremacy.

Non-Racist Skinheads of Dallas and Fort Worth, also known as
DSB, is a group of teen-agers of various races who also shave
their heads. But they try to combat racism. Members wear
American flag patches and Star of David badges bearing the
slogan "Never Again" -- a reference to the Nazi Holocaust.

Some members of the non-racist skinhead group were in U.S.
District Judge Barefoot Sanders' courtroom when the guilty
verdict was read last week, and afterward they congratulated
prosecutors.

= 30 =

Tracy Everbach covers federal courts and federal agencies in
Dallas for the Dallas Morning News.

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