A couple of weeks ago, it was reported throughout various media outlets (see video below for one of those original reports) across the country that yet another active duty police officer had been exposed as a member of the Ku Klux Klan. In this instance, Detective Raymond Mott, of the Lake Arthur Police Department in Louisiana, had been outed after a photo of him giving a “Nazi salute” at a KKK rally in North Carolina. Unlike most cases of police misconduct and even outright crimes, Mott was immediately fired from the police force by the City of Lake Arthur.
On the face of it, that would be a pretty commendable act by the Lake Arthur police and city council. However, according to a recent article on Vice.com, Detective Mott has since claimed that the picture was actually taken while he was working undercover to infiltrate the KKK and undermine their spread in Louisiana. A claim that FBI sources and even sources within the KKK seem to confirm, at least partially:
In August 2014, Mott—who had left his job at another police department and had yet to joint the Lake Arthur force—and another Louisiana man named Trey Gordon took a trip to “an anti-immigration” rally held by the Loyal White Knights of the KKK in North Carolina. When they got there, Mott said, the Klansmen “just spewed hate.”
“One guy from Georgia stood up and bragged about driving through a black area in his pickup truck and when he would pass a black person yell racial slurs and then smack them with a baseball bat,” Mott said. James Moore, their Imperial Klud—which is their Christian pastor—was openly calling for people to go on a ‘Knight Ride’ to ‘bash faggots.'”
Mott filled out an application for membership with the Loyal White Knights and paid his dues the day of the rally, “but not to join them but to destroy them,” he said. “I don’t fit in with that crowd.”
Mott and Gordon went back to Louisiana, ostensibly as Klansmen—but in reality, the two men say, they were stamping out the group, who Mott describes as “maybe 30 rednecks who go out and manipulate people saying they are a Christian organization but they are just common thugs who hate.”
Weeks later, Mott approached the FBI and began supplying them “everything I knew about the Klan—names, codes, everything.” FBI sources confirmed Mott’s account.
“We were the highest ranking members in Louisiana,” Mott said. “So all calls from new potential members in Louisiana to the national Klan office were passed to us… I told at least 30 or 40 people, ‘This is a scam. It is a hate group. You don’t want anything to do with these guys.'”
Sources in the Loyal White Knights confirmed that the Louisiana branch of the organization withered away, that they didn’t show up at any rallies after the North Carolina meeting, and all recruitment efforts in the state came to a halt. “We considered the realm in Louisiana dead,” said Jeremy Jones, who was a LWK Grand Dragon (or state leader) until he left the Klan in July.
Instead, Mott says that the reason he was fired is because he was a strictly “by the books” cop who was willing to even arrest other cops in an area that is notorious for police corruption. In fact, Terrie Guillory, Mott’s direct supervisor and the man who pushed most for his firing has been accused of numerous cases of misconduct including as serious as murder allegations.
Specifically, Mott claims that he angered his bosses by jailing a fellow police officer for refusing to sign a traffic ticket. Subsequent to that, the officer was released, the ticket was dismissed, and Mott was given an order not to ticket any more cops, which he maintains he refused.
It was at that point when the photo, which Lake Arthur police officials had already known about for at least six months, was made public on Facebook. Then demands for his firing based on that picture began within the department leadership, even though they knew about his presence at the rally when he was hired. Once again, Vice states that this is confirmed, both by FBI sources and sources within the Lake Arthur Police Department. (Those involved in pushing for Mott’s firing refused to comment.)
So, the obvious question would be why did Mott’s superiors wait so long to get outraged about this horribly inappropriate picture that they knew about when they were deciding if they should hire him? And why is it that every part of Mott’s story is being confirmed even by the FBI and other law enforcement sources, but outside of that picture it doesn’t seem the Lake Arthur police have much of a case to make against him (his record contains no complaints or disciplinary actions prior to that)? Was this really just a convenient excuse to oust a cop who refused to let other cops break the law with impunity, even after being ordered to do so?
Kelly is a lifelong resident of Las Vegas, who’s been very active in local grassroots activism, as well as on a national level during his extensive travels. He’s also the founder/main contributor of Nevada Cop Block, served as editor/contributor at CopBlock.org and designed the Official Cop Block Press Passes.
____________________________________________________________________________
Connect with Kelly at these social networks; Facebook, YouTube and Twitter.
Wow, you guys are gullible. He wasn’t working with the FBI, he later admitted to lying about that claim then tried to posit that he had been “baptised” after he did it so it totally didn’t count. 🙄
https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/louisiana-fired-pictured-giving-nazi-salute-kkk-article-1.2347308