KY law enforcement has a white supremacy problem that needs to be fixed
In late October, the student journalists at the award-winning Manual Redeye (the newspaper of duPont Manual High School in Louisville) reported on training materials used by the Kentucky State Police in which cadets were instructed to become “ruthless killers” with a “mindset void of emotion.” The mandatory training included several attributed quotes from Adolph Hitler’s “Mein Kampf,” including “the very first essential for success is a perpetually constant and regular employment of violence.” A web link in the presentation directed KSP cadets to a page with links to “Mein Kampf” and other speeches and writings of Hilter. Governor Andy Beshear quickly condemned KSP’s use of Hitler quotes. Justice Cabinet spokeswoman Morgan Hall assured the public that the materials were removed in 2013. And KSP Commissioner Rodney Brewer resigned, with thanks and accolades from the Beshear administration. End of story.
Or not.
A month later, the Manual Redeye reported on training materials created by the Kentucky Department of Criminal Justice Training that included anti-Semitic and neo-Nazi source materials. The KDCJT training was in use in 2020, and included material from the film “America’s Manufactured Opioid Crisis: The Hidden History of Heroin Pushers.” That film is filled with anti-Semitic conspiracy theories, and blames Jews for pushing heroin on the American public for more than a century. The KDCJT training excluded the most anti-Semitic claims, but does make sure to point cadets to the source material. Included is a clip with the name of the production company (Renegade Films) over a sonnenrad, or “Black Sun.” The sonnenrad is a historic Nazi symbol used by today’s neo-Nazis and white supremacists. It’s commonplace in the darker corners of the internet, often alongside racist and anti-Semitic memes, calls for violence against Jews, immigrants, and people of color, and celebrations of massacres like the 2018 shooting at the Tree of Life synagogue in Pittsburgh.
Just weeks before the Manual Redeye’s reporting, the U.S. House held a hearing on white-supremacist infiltration of law enforcement agencies and released an unredacted copy of a 2006 FBI intelligence assessment titled “White Supremacist Infiltration in Law Enforcement.” The report describes examples of “strategic infiltration and recruitment campaigns” by white supremacist groups. The 2006 report was echoed in a 2020 report by the Brennan Center for Justice (authored by a former FBI agent) which found that “since 2000, law enforcement officials with alleged connections to white supremacist groups have been exposed in more than a dozen states.” A 2017 Joint Intelligence Bulletin from the FBI and Department of Homeland Security titled “White Supremacist Extremism Poses Persistent Threat of Lethal Violence” reported that, from 2000 to 2016, white supremacists were responsible for more murders and assaults “than any other domestic extremist movement.”
The very real dangers of white supremacist influence in law enforcement trainings aren’t limited to the cultivating of specific racist attitudes and bias. They include teaching officers to fear anyone seen as “other,” that the “other” represents an imminent threat, and that responding to that threat with extreme violence is both necessary and expected.
Thus far, the public response from the Beshear administration has focused on the need to review materials and remove any other racist or anti-Semitic content. But to treat this as some sort of quality control issue is a dangerous act of misdirection. Specific people chose to use white supremacist source materials in these law enforcement trainings. Other law enforcement officials reviewed and approved these materials to instruct cadets about their jobs and what is expected of them. Untold numbers of officers were trained using these materials, and no one said anything.
The Beshear administration should heed the call by the Jewish Community of Louisville for a structural review of all law enforcement agencies in Kentucky. The infiltration of white supremacists in law enforcement, with all of the deference and lethal authority conveyed in carrying out their duties, represents a real and unacceptable threat to the people of Kentucky.
Jim Scheff is an ecologist and public lands advocate who lives in Berea.