Klan Role Cost Ex-Cop Job, Sanity : Fighting Back With Two Court Cases

By RICHARD A. SERRANO

Oct. 25, 1987 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

Eight years after Douglas K. Seymour penetrated the inner sanctum of the Ku Klux Klan, there remain two sharply conflicting reviews of his performance.

He is praised by the Los Angeles County district’s attorney’s office as an expert witness on white supremacy groups. He is pummeled by many in the San Diego Police Department as a cop who infiltrated the Klan, then went over the edge.

He has become the linchpin in what Los Angeles officials said is a first-in-the-nation criminal trial of Klan members from Southern California on felony charges of unlawful assembly during a December, 1983, cross-burning in the San Fernando Valley.

Disavowed by Police

He became a problem in San Diego, where senior police officers have disavowed him and discounted his credibility. He says the police destroyed his weekly intelligence reports after he filed a million-dollar lawsuit against Chief Bill Kolender and the city. Police say they routinely shred such reports.

Now, after years of legal wrangling, both cases are rapidly moving toward conclusion.

A San Diego County Superior Court judge recently set a March 21 date to try Seymour’s lawsuit. And a Los Angeles County Superior Court judge recently advised attorneys to expect a trial date of early January or February in the criminal case.

“I understand all the reasons and all the motivations involved here,” Seymour said. He is a tall, lanky man. He has curly hair and wears on his finger a gold and black ring with the letter S. When deep in thought, he leans back in his chair in the Del Mar construction company office where he works as a consultant.

In the years since he gained entree to the world of Tom Metzger of Fallbrook, one of the nation’s most notorious white supremacists, Seymour has lost his marriage, his position with the Police Department and a lot of money. For a while, he even lost his senses. Leaning farther back in the chair, he said: “I call it a lesson in humility.”

The undisputed facts about Seymour:

He was serving as a San Diego police reserve officer when he was recruited in 1979 by the Police Department for the undercover Klan detail.

For 2 1/2 years, he attended Klan meetings, rallies, demonstrations, cross-burnings and other activities that took him up and down the state. His expenses were reimbursed by the San Diego Police Department.

During that period, Metzger ran for a congressional seat and Seymour was present at many of the political strategy sessions and campaign events.

During the 1980 campaign, Kolender endorsed Metzger’s opponent. Metzger lost the election. Later, after Seymour’s cover was blown, the Klan leader threatened to sue Kolender, contending that police had spent tax money and resources for Seymour to spy on his political campaign.

Police Reaction

Kolender reacted by saying only that police had an informant inside the Klan. He did not acknowledge Seymour’s role as an undercover officer. (Today, the San Diego police hierarchy and the city attorney’s office refuse to be interviewed about Seymour because of his pending lawsuit.)

Seymour at this time was hospitalized, ultimately undergoing a year of psychiatric care. His weekly intelligence reports had been destroyed. No criminal charges were brought in San Diego against Klan members based on Seymour’s infiltration work.

Seymour sued the department for not supporting him when he believed his mental trauma was brought on by his undercover assignment.

Meanwhile, the district attorney’s office in Los Angeles charged a group of Klan members, including Metzger, in the unlawful assembly and cross-burning. Seymour was certified as a key expert witness in the case after he led prosecutors to what they said was a “trail of terrorism” perpetrated by the Klan in California. Much of the information he provided came directly from his work for the San Diego Police Department.

Los Angeles prosecutors said they were able to corroborate Seymour’s information with every California law enforcement agency they contacted. Except one. They got nothing from the San Diego Police Department.

How those close to Seymour interpret those facts:

- “I don’t know of any other case where people reached as high a level as Doug did in the Metzger organization,” said Leonard Zeskind, research director of the Center for Democratic Renewal, a national group that investigates and exposes white supremacy groups.

“He not only saw what the public sees, but what’s behind the scenes and the level of planning and really what’s in the minds of these people. Doug was privy to those kinds of things. There are very few people in the country who can say that.”

- “His expertise is both scholarly and personal,” said John W. Phillips, special prosecutor assigned to the organized crime and anti-terrorism division of the Los Angeles County district attorney’s office.

“What really makes Doug different is that his knowledge goes beyond city boundaries. He was very successful in infiltrating the Klan and rose to a level of confidence within the Klan. He has seen the Klan from the inside.”

- “Doug Seymour was my friend,” San Diego Police Sgt. Ernest F. Trumper said in a deposition this summer in Seymour’s lawsuit. “He was almost like my brother, that’s how I felt about him.”

Trumper recounted how he personally recruited Seymour for the undercover job, how Seymour became too involved in the mission, and how his weekly reports were routinely condensed and systematically destroyed. And he described how Seymour surfaced from psychiatric care and in 1983 sued Kolender and the city.

“He called me once and told me that he was sorry that he had to file a lawsuit against me,” Trumper said. “But he had to do it. And that was the last conversation I’ve had with him.”

- Kolender, in his deposition, claimed little knowledge of Seymour’s role inside the Klan. “He was a confidant of Metzger’s and worked with him and told us what Metzger and the Klan was going to do,” the chief said. “After that, I don’t really know what else he did.”

- In a recent interview in Fallbrook, Metzger, now national director of the White Aryan Resistance, summed up Seymour as a “wanna-be.”

“Doug Seymour likes to play roles,” Metzger said. “He liked to play the cop role. He likes to play the victim role, like he’s doing in his lawsuit in San Diego. And he likes to play the expert role, like he’s doing in L.A.

“But he was into what he was doing (in the Klan). He liked it. He also always wanted to be a cop and this was his big chance to make the big score. Instead, his whole world fell apart on him.”

- Finally, Seymour on Seymour: “I can measure in miles the successes of my detail” in the Klan, he said, still bitter about his destroyed intelligence reports and the fact that no criminal charges were ever brought in San Diego.

“It showed the kind of racism we had in San Diego County. Tom Metzger is a criminal in every sense of the word, and he should have been prosecuted for crimes he committed, based on my police reports.”

It is the destruction of those police reports, a revelation that just recently surfaced officially in the Trumper deposition, that lies at the heart of Seymour’s lawsuit against Kolender and San Diego.

At issue here is whether the Police Department, having already placed Seymour inside the Klan, used him to spy on Metzger’s political campaign once the Klan leader filed for Congress.

Police maintain that Seymour was used only to gather criminal intelligence and that if Seymour did attend Metzger’s political functions, it was only as a police undercover officer monitoring potential criminal violations. Seymour and Metzger maintain that Seymour was used for both purposes--as a police investigator and as a political operative.

Key Assertions

Seymour, to show that Kolender and the city abandoned him after his undercover assignment, is attempting to prove three key assertions:

That Kolender and the Police Department panicked when Metzger threatened to sue them, fearing they would be proven guilty of spying on the political campaign rather than doing proper undercover investigation of a violent organization. That Kolender denied ever meeting Seymour or having direct knowledge of his work inside the Klan, even though Kolender was fully aware of the operation. And that the reports were destroyed because, while they did show crimes were committed, they also placed Seymour at the right hand of Metzger during the congressional campaign.

Metzger won the 1980 Democratic primary but then was soundly defeated in the general election for the 43rd Congressional District seat.

Looking back, Metzger said there is no doubt that the police used Seymour for political means. And he said he would have followed through with the threat to sue Kolender, but that he lacked the money to pay for attorneys and court costs. “I didn’t want to hock my house for it,” he said.

“Everyone would have seen that the San Diego Police Department was dirty,” he said. “They (police) wanted to know where the money was coming from. And Seymour was following me everywhere. Doug was just always available. He had catered parties and catered campaign meetings. It went beyond just watching that Tom Metzger didn’t hurt somebody.”

Seymour and Metzger point to one glaring example that showed Seymour was given police approval to cross the line into political activity. When Metzger attempted to have his name certified as a candidate on the primary ballot, the registrar found that he was four signatures short, with less than two hours before the filing deadline.

Seymour said he went home, telephoned his police commanders and was given the go-ahead to secure four signatures from his family.

‘Sweating It’

“It was a last-minute thing,” Metzger said. “We were sweating it and Doug was helpful.”

Seymour said: “In my perception, that was our first violation of the Hatch Act.”

All sides, including Metzger, agree that Seymour was originally placed in the Klan to gather criminal intelligence. But all sides also agree that after Metzger mounted a serious push for the congressional seat, it was difficult to differentiate his intelligence gathering on crimes from spying on a political campaign.

Seymour was present at Klan rallies and demonstrations in Oceanside and Fontana. He also stood at Metzger’s side during campaign functions throughout San Diego County.

Exactly when the reports were destroyed is unclear. Trumper, in his deposition, said it was a matter of police policy to condense reports and then routinely destroy them when they no longer remained relevant. But it is Seymour’s argument that they were shredded only after Metzger announced he was going to sue Kolender.

As Seymour’s lawsuit heads toward trial, two conflicting pieces of evidence offer snapshots of two different men: Seymour the undercover investigator and Seymour the political spy. One is a list Seymour put together from memory about some of the Klan activities he witnessed. The other is a three-page list Metzger said he and his wife compiled and then gave to police several years ago as proof of political spying on his campaign.

A few examples of the differences:

- Primary night, June 3, 1980. Seymour’s list describes Klan discussion of fire-bombing a synagogue and plans to rob armored cars. Metzger’s list says simply: “Primary election night. Seymour handled security.”

- June 17, 1980. Seymour’s list alludes to a meeting at his house in which illegal fund-raising was discussed, along with an illegal bookie operation and laundered money. Metzger’s list: “D.S. furnished his house for campaign strategy of 20 people or more. D.S. had cattered (sic) food and drinks. Privy to entire campaign strategy.”)

- An Imperial Valley campaign session on July 11, 1980. Seymour: “Criminal report made on a practicing medical doctor. He would later lose his license to practice after killing a young child.” Metzger: “D.S. provides transportation. Meets all Metzger backers in Imperial Valley area.”

It is Seymour’s assertion that if he can show his intelligence reports were destroyed after Metzger threatened to sue, then he can show the police tried to cover up their involvement with him.

But one thing is clear: The day after Metzger threatened to sue, Kolender held his own press conference and acknowledged only that an “informant” was placed in the Klan, and only “long before Metzger became involved in the congressional campaign.”

Psychiatric Care

By then, May, 1982, Seymour was undergoing psychiatric treatment. His marriage was failing. His cover was blown when Metzger learned Seymour was a police reserve officer from the divorce papers. In addition, Seymour said, his company was failing and he had just lost out on a million-dollar construction project and a new land development venture. Now the chief of police had disowned him.

“I knew Bill well,” Seymour said of Kolender. “I called him chief. He called me Doug. He gave me awards that won’t quit. I danced with his wife, he danced with mine.

“I’d get calls all the time for special reports because the chief wanted them during the detail. I’d get a call the chief wanted an update. As the campaign and rallies and cross-burnings intensified, I’d have to make reports daily. Sometimes I’d have to make verbal reports on the phone because the chief wanted them.

“I thought I had an excellent relationship with him.”

Zeskind, research director of the Center for Democratic Renewal, put it this way:

“The Police Department got caught with its pants down. Metzger goes to a lawyer and says he wants to sue. The Police Department said ‘Holy Jesus’ and went out and shredded everything they had. Their first reflex was to shred every document.

“It was a rotten impulse and it did a lot to mean justice wasn’t done for Doug Seymour and wasn’t done for the people of the San Diego area. The danger from that white supremacy group remains. The criminal activities they did weren’t brought to justice. And Tom Metzger is still going around bragging about how he’s never gone to jail.”

If special prosecutor John Phillips perseveres in Los Angeles, Metzger’s boast will be short-lived.

On Dec. 3, 1983, three 20-foot-tall wooden crosses were burned in a rural area of the northern San Fernando Valley to focus attention on the slaying of a white Los Angeles police officer by a black man.

While as many as 13 men were originally indicted, today six defendants, including Metzger, face various charges of unlawful assembly, conspiring to burn waste materials without a permit, carrying night sticks and wearing a disguise during a crime. Over the years, some of the charges have been dropped, and some have been stiffened from misdemeanors to felonies. At least 10 judges have heard different proceedings in the case.

First-Time Case

Phillips said “it is the first time ever in the country” that a felony charge of unlawful assembly has developed out of what normally would be a misdemeanor count of illegal burning in a cross-lighting ceremony.

“The only way we are able to do that is by developing the significance of cross-burning in terms of similar activities and the Klan’s intent,” he said. “And the only way we can show their intent is through expert witnesses, particularly someone who has infiltrated the Klan and witnessed their cross-burnings.”

That’s where Seymour comes in.

“We gained our background on this largely because of Doug,” Phillips added. “We felt more confident in our decision to file the case.”

With Seymour’s recollections, the district attorney’s office was able to show a pattern of cross-burnings, violence and Klan intent to intimidate and harass minorities. Phillips found confirmation when he turned to the San Luis Obispo, Sacramento and Kern County sheriff’s departments, and the Sacramento, Fontana and Oceanside police departments.

“All of them were fully cooperative and fully corroborated the information we had previously learned from Mr. Seymour,” Phillips said.

‘Never Shed Promise’

But the San Diego Police Department “never shed any promise on my acquiring any material.”

Last spring, Seymour testified in the preliminary hearing about numerous cross-burnings and other Klan activities he witnessed during his years undercover. And the judge ruled that all of his testimony was relevant and admissible, and that it did indicate a pattern of terrorism on the part of the Klan. The defendants were ordered to stand trial.

Phillips noted that it was accomplished without the aid of the San Diego Police Department.

“I can understand why they did it,” Phillips said, agreeing with Seymour that the Police Department shredded the police reports to spare themselves a political scandal. “If I was Tom Metzger I’d have probably sued them at the time.”

As it turned out, he said, San Diego police may have saved themselves from the embarrassment of losing a lawsuit to the Klan. But in doing so, it also lost a measure of credibility with other law enforcement agencies.

About the San Diego Police Department, Phillips said: “They destroyed themselves to protect themselves.”