Held Hostage: Video 
Behind the Lines: Podcast 
Crime
Ku Klux Klowns
In March, four white supremacists decided to bomb Wise County. Thanks to their ineptitude, the plan blew up in their faces.
(Page 2 of 2)
To bankroll the bombing, the five of them are heard planning to stick up two local drug dealers. They set out to hit “number one” on April 1 and again on April 8, only to be dissuaded each time by the deliberately stepped-up presence of donut-munching, coffee-quaffing state troopers in the area. Yet the tapes suggest that even for this first robbery, their plans were not terribly concrete. They talk about posing as bounty hunters in search of a bail jumper; a few minutes later they ponder posing as agents for the Drug Enforcement Agency. They never do decide whether to kick in the door or knock first and let the “druggies” come out with their hands up—or, for that matter, whether to rob them or “take them out.” One thing is settled, though: They will bind the dealers together with duct tape, which they hail as the Klansman’s favorite tool.
They spend most of their time puffing outrageously. Waskom says he is getting two 55-gallon drums filled with super-duper explosives from Chicago, via his uncle in the mob. They tell tall tales, like the one about the neighbor who accidentally microwaved two sticks of C-4 plastic explosive that looked like burritos. Shawn Adams brags about converting an SKS assault rifle to fully automatic; Taylor jokes about buying a flat of grenades. They laugh about the stupid crimes of “niggers,” then decide to spray-paint a gang logo on a wall to throw the law off their trail. They contemplate leaving a note tying the gas plant explosion to Oklahoma City. On a trip to the LBJ grasslands to experiment with Coke-bottle bombs filled with black powder, they proudly mug for Spence’s FBI-supplied video camera.
Eventually, at Spence’s suggestion, they postpone “number one” until April 22. On that afternoon, the Adamses, Taylor, and Spence set off to cruise targets one more time. When they pulled into Bridgeport (population: 3,700) to get gas, seven unmarked government cars peeled out from a funeral home parking lot. The tiny video camera planted in Spence’s FBI-supplied pickup truck shows Taylor idly wondering where five speeding black-and-whites are going. Catherine Adams was the first to figure it out. “Oh, shit,” she says, craning to look over her shoulder.
At first it seemed a spectacular save. The feds had believed that Wise County was where Mitchell Energy Corporation had been storing hydrogen sulfide, a poisonous chemical by-product of natural-gas distillation commonly known as sour gas. In a press conference the afternoon of the arrests, special agent Garrity explained that the would-be terrorists had been poised to “wipe out” half the county. For 48 hours, major news organizations scrambled to determine just how close the True Knights came to pulling another McVeigh.
Two days later, however, the answer was clear: not very. In what turned out to be the first joke on the government, the target of the big bombing, Mitchell Energy, released a statement denying it had ever stored sour gas in Wise County. The FBI was embarrassed and incensed at the ingratitude. “I saved their plant,” an FBI official bitterly complained in an interview four months later. “We pulled in agents from Houston, from San Antonio, from Oklahoma City. We worked around the clock. For twenty-one days those people didn’t fart without us knowing it.”
Far from disavowing their case, however, the feds were sending out an aggressive message: They were here and policing right-wing groups with a vengeance. “A lot of these militia groups are getting out of control,” says one federal prosecutor assigned to the case. “We’re going to be doing a lot more of these cases. Some of these militia guys are more radical than even the radicals like.” Indeed, at a preliminary hearing the following week, the government unveiled its most spectacular evidence: videotape taken by a tiny camera planted in Spence’s ashtray as Spence and the others were scoping out Mitchell Energy and discussing the bombing plot.
It was troubling, to be sure—and yet, somehow, not as troubling as portions of the government’s case. Part of it was the fact that Spence, the government’s informant, was the only member of the conspiracy with a criminal record. Part of it was what was recovered, or not recovered, by officers who searched three trailer homes and one storage unit maintained by the True Knights: They found plenty of robes, hoods, and Klan manifestos but only a small fraction of the firepower the government claimed; no 55-gallon drums of supernitroglycerin, no fully automatic Chinese-made assault rifles (though they did find eight dummy hand grenades). And part of it was the silliness surrounding the secret identity of the government’s snitch, even though half of Wise County knew it was Spence. “Ray Charles coulda seen through it,” says Sheriff Ryan.
But the most troubling part of the feds’ case was their assertion that Spence knew nothing of the bombing plot—which his underlings had supposedly hatched without his knowledge or input—until Taylor called him on March 24 and asked him “to participate.” At least two FBI informants who attended one of Spence’s meetings in February 1994 say the plot was already afoot back then. “There was going to be no more talking about things—they were going to be doing things,” recalls one informant. “Everybody was talking about blowing stuff up and about robbing an armored car. They already had the route and the plan.”
The government charged all four defendants with conspiring to commit armed robbery and possession of illegal weapons (the bottle bombs they set off at the LBJ grasslands). All four pleaded guilty and will be sentenced on January 23. It was probably a shrewd move, in light of not only the tapes but also the zeitgeist; in a nation terrified by the newly discovered threat of domestic terrorism, anything other than a guilty plea was going to be a tough sell.
For its part, the FBI is still backslapping over the success of Operation Sour Gas and refusing to divulge how much it cost. And the U.S. attorney isn’t entertaining questions about whether it was all really necessary. “If the bomb had gone off, you guys would have been the first ones yelling,” Paul Coggins says from the fortress of the Earle Cabell federal building, which has been on a heightened security alert since April 1995.
Meanwhile, Spence, who declined to be placed in the formal witness protection program, remains in the Metroplex, receiving rent plus $1,750 a month until the sentencing. He has fallen out with the FBI, whom he accuses of withholding some of the promised bonus in the case. He is still gathering intelligence for Morgan Bodie, although he refuses to work with most other FBI agents. He and his lawyer are panning for TV and book deals, visions of mobster-turned-informant- turned-memoirist Sammy “the Bull” Gravano dancing in their heads. And he’s finally beginning to tell the “truth” about the violent rhetoric of right-wing groups.
“Most of the time it’s idle BS,” he says. “It’s when you don’t hear anything that you’ve got to worry. The only way to stop these people is with money. Offer a reward—enough that they never have to stick their necks out again. Because as much as they talk about Jewish people, movement members love a buck as much as anybody.”
Pages: 1 2
My Library
