Ohio trooper photographed in KKK costume suspended

Ohio trooper suspended for KKK costume
ASSOCIATED PRESS
04/13/2008


SANDUSKY, Ohio -- A highway patrolman who was photographed in a handmade Ku Klux Klan costume while on duty the day before the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday has been suspended without pay, authorities said.

A fellow trooper who transmitted the cell-phone photo of white-masked lawman has been demoted.

Craig Franklin, a 12-year veteran of the Ohio Highway Patrol, is pictured in the Jan. 20 photo with a white cone on his head, white paper mask and a white cloth covering his shoulders, according to a highway patrol report.

Franklin is otherwise in trooper uniform. A handgun holster, a radio normally issued by the patrol and other police equipment can be seen in the photo, the report said.

Franklin and Trooper Eric Wlodarsky told an investigator that the picture was taken as a joke and was modeled on a television skit by comedian Dave Chappelle.

Highway patrol officials began an investigation after the patrol's Administrative Investigative Unit received an anonymous letter that included two photographs of Franklin in the outfit, an interoffice memo said.

Franklin, Wlodarsky, another trooper and a dispatcher discussed Martin Luther King Jr. Day at their post on the day the photo was taken, the report said. The national holiday was the following day.

None of the 13 troopers assigned to the Sandusky post are black.

"Obviously, we're extremely disappointed," said patrol spokesman Lt. Shawn Davis. "This kind of conduct cannot and will not be tolerated."

Following a March 24 hearing, Wlodarsky was demoted from sergeant to trooper, transferred to another post and must attend a diversity awareness class. Franklin was placed on a five-day unpaid suspension, and must take part in diversity awareness training, patrol documents showed.

A third trooper who received the picture via a text message was given a one-day suspension for failing to report the incident and forwarding the photo to a subordinate.

 

Midwestern "Confederates" piss me off more than southerners....I can understand when someone from Alabama or Mississippi etc. acts a certain way...because of history and their heritage....when a lot of them had great-great grandparents that owned slaves and fought for the Rebels....they are (maybe a little misguided) representing their blood......these northern wannabe hillbilly P********** are the worst.....they have no reasonable excuse for acting so ridiculous...but then again...midwest has lots of contradictions....Indiana had one of the highest (maybe the highest) rate of KKK enrollment in the late 1910's and early 1920's

 

heh-heh.. Klan kulture ran deep in my original home state.. I grew up in Gary..

and of course, klan membership had proliferated mainstream nationwide by the turn of the 20th century, the KKK had real political power in any number of states, especially Indiana.. there's a good History Channel documentary on kkk history..

yeah, it always struck me as glaringly odd that various communities north
of the mason dixon hold on to the Stars & Bars just as heavily as others.. Joe and Jane NASCAR are prime demographic targets for various politicians, but nobody seriously addresses the Confed-Flag issue..

curiously, at one point, the Irish, as Catholics, were regular Klan targets, but now plenty of folks with scot-irish surnames are members of kkk/white power, extremist militia groups, etc.;

Now in Michigan, you still see those folks here and there.. as much as I love Kid Rock, I am disappointed that he basically reinforces a vague support of "Reb" culture with his routines...

 

Exactly...that's what these Yanks don't realize....their Rebel war heroes would have looked down on them...and may have tried to lynch them if they brought their "funny ways" (Catholicism) around some "good ole Baptist" folk from the Deep South.


They think all the rebel stuff is cool....but I look at it in this way:

IF I MARRIED A WEALTHY SAUDI ARABIAN WOMAN WHO HAPPENED TO BE OSAMA BIN LADEN'S DAUGHTER OR SOMETHING.....AND OUR CHILD WOKE UP ONE DAY AND WANTED TO EMBRACE HIS "HERITAGE" BY WEARING AL-QAEDA T-SHIRTS....WOULD PEOPLE BE SO CAVALIER ABOUT IT......I DON'T THINK SO.