The Gloves Have Come Off!

By Tony Willow

Question: Do “Creators” Condone, Encourage and Praise Violence?

You Bet Your Ass They Do!

I wish to share with everyone an email I received last night from Brian Moudry, one of the “three stooges” of the Creativity Movement (well now there are only two as Joel DuFresne is sitting in jail at the moment) regarding CAH’s coverage of the March 23 stabbing/murder in Florida.

To: tonywillow2001@yahoo.com
Subject: POOR PLANNING...
From: "Joliet"
Date: Sun, 26 Mar 2006 12:04:28 -0500 (EST)


What it comes down too, is bad decision making..as in, you
people are fuckin stupid...if I walk down 63rd and cottage grove at
midnight
yelling nigger, id expect to die...if you flaunt your
race mixing filth in a trailerpark full of
kids claiming to
be Neo Nazi Skinheads...expect the same.
Whats so hard to understand
about that ?? You see, this is the
real world...not the world your tv has led you to belive

in..not the world you like to "imagine" when playing your hippie
records ...but violence is ok if
its 1,500 against 10 WP Skins at
a punk show right??? Ha.. I wish they wouldve killed the whole
fuckin family. Quote that if ya want..I really dont care.

From this day forward I will never say that the Creativity Movement or its members claim to be non-violent. I think they have shown this to be completely false on numerous occasions but this one tops the cake.

The Stabbing of Patricia Well's and the murder of Kristofer King is just another notch on the belt to all racists out there and according to Brian Moudry it's a good thing. How are acts like this OK? Patricia wells had a right to live her life without being harassed constantly by these Nazi's just as Nazi's have the right to be the ignorant racists that they are. Since when do these people decide what is right and wrong? Brian's rationale that she should have known better than to move next to the Nazi's just proves once again that racists want to make all the rules and expect everyone to bow down to their every whim, or else. This is not the first time this group reared its ugly head either. One Tampa Bay news station spoke with several long time residents about the Nazi's terrorizing the neighborhood.


“We’d seen the neighborhood go down to the pits, I mean, it is actually scary.”

“They mess with everybody who comes through here.” “They think they own the whole neighborhood. And I have family here whose kids had complained about it. My buddy’s daughter, 15, they gave her a hard time a couple days ago.”

These people were terrorizing EVERYONE who didn’t agree with their racists beliefs or were of another color. This, by no means, was the first time hate reared its ugly head towards Ms. Well’s. On March 14, 2006 police were called to the trailer park because Christine Cristinzio (girlfriend to Shawn Plott who has been arrested in connection with this crime) claims that Ms. Well’s black boyfriend had allegedly pulled a gun on her. No charges were filed in that incident.

After going through all of the details of what happened the night of the stabbing and murder its been said that the Nazi’s were holding a party for the return of Shawn Plott who is referred to as the “Nazis’ club president” from a trip. Now I don’t know how long he was gone but I suspect he wasn’t around for the March 14th confrontation which begs the question if his girlfriend Christine Cristinzio didn’t play this whole thing up. We all know how racists blow things way out of proportion and how they just love to get people riled up. All you have to do to get confirmation of that is to listen to Hal Turner and read just about everything that Bill White writes. Case and point. When Bill wrote about this he turned Kristofer King into the black teenage lover of Patricia Wells. He knows damn well that what he wrote is just plain wrong. Ya can’t have a racist killing an innocent white person now can you? And heaven forbid Bill make a retraction.

Act’s like these can never be justified nor condoned and especially encouraged. Unlike Brian, I don’t do that and never will but he will never admit that. Here is the question I posed to him in my email response.

If I showed up on your street I should expect to die just because I don’t believe as you do?

That question led to the following:

Brian Moudry: Supreme Idiot?
By Tony Willow

Of course Mr. Moudry had to reply to my email last night, and of course he said just what I thought he would.

To: tonywillow2001@yahoo.com
Subject: Re: POOR PLANNING...
From: "Joliet" View Contact Details Add Mobile Alert
Date: Mon, 27 Mar 2006 04:32:50 -0500 (EST)
I never said " I " was non violent...I said the Church officialy
takes that stance..if a situation warrants violence, so be
it..as in if some negroe pulled a gun on me and threatened my

life, I would then be propelled to respond in a violent
manner..as the supposed
offender did in this case..
Nor did I say id kill or maim you for walkin down my block,
although im certain id be very tempted..I said , in theory, if
you and some nubian loveslave shacked up next to me...and
flaunted it in my face on a daily basis, dont be shocked if

your living situation became less than ideal at some point. My
true colors ? how so,
I never claimed to have pity for race
traitors..I dont execute them on sight, nor do I shed any tears
when someone does.
And please, im not mad...try un- pleasently ammused.


Ok, I want to start with a famous Matthew Hale Quote via taped conversations that were introduced into evidence in his trial.

“Well, the World Church of the Creator’s policy is, well we’re legal but we encourage everyone else to be illegal (laughs), you know.

Moudry’s comment doesn’t mesh with that too well now does it? So basically he is breaking their own rules! Big surprise there. But then again, violence is the rule for them.

Additionally, Moudry is clueless about the case in Florida. The “gun” incident didn’t happen to a man, it happened to Christine Cristinzio, the girlfriend of Shawn Plott who has been accused of being the murderer in this case by one of his own. There was no immediate threat in this case. This is a case of a deranged killer hell bent on inflicting his rage. Why didn’t they go after the person who supposedly drew the gun? Why did they have to go after a WOMAN? I think there is a trend happening as of late. This case, the fact that Brian Moudry’s “buddy” and “comrade” is in jail awaiting trial for raping his girlfriend/wife, the threats made towards myself and Nikki Nicholes by several racists. I could go on and on about that. But lets address some of the other comments he made.

Brian claims that if I moved in next door and flaunted a mix race relationship that he would make life “less than ideal”. Yeah right. If I moved in next door to him I wouldn’t have to be in a mix raced relationship for him to make my life “less than ideal”. Why? Because I would not stand for what he and his ilk do on a daily basis, IN FRONT OF A SCHOOL! Yeah, you read that right. Mr. Moudry lives right across from an elementary school in Joliet Illinois. I wonder if the parents of the kids know this? Maybe they should be informed at the next school board meeting? Lord knows that if I did live there, his life would be “less than ideal” for sure. And what would that get me? Killed more than likely. Would I still do it? DAMN RIGHT. Bring it Brian and all you racists out there. Someone has to stand up to you all and I’m stating right now I’M NOT BACKING DOWN. Expect things to get “hot” on the anti-racist side cause we are coming with our message loud and clear. HATE WILL NOT PREVAIL. I hope this keeps you amused Brian Moudry, keep laughing while we keep exposing you for what you are.

About Bill's Distortion

Now, let's look at Bill White's latest distortion. In an absoultely unconscionable distortion of reality, Bill White's gleeful rendering of the story surrounding the death of an innocent child, has left more than a few people sick at their stomachs.

Never mind that I don't like Bill White. Never mind that I find him one of the most repugnant individuals to ever walk the face of this earth. And...never mind that he is almost always in my radar these days. This is something that even the toughest of individuals find detestable.

Bill, attempting to endear himself to his cohorts, characterized this seventeen-year-old boy as the black teenage lover of 44 year-old Patricia Wells. He went on to spin this whole case into the land of the totally unrecognizable. Of course, this is White's stock in trade and the way that he goes about trying to do damage control.

In an attempt to besmirch and denigrate the memory of a high-school student, Bill White reached what might very well be his all time lowest point in that gutter he calls a mind. After reading an interview in the St. Petersburgh times with one of the Nazi's involved in this case, White took gross liberties with the result. Claiming that Kristofer was black and involved with Ms. Wells he also accused him of pointing a gun at Christine Cristinzio, the accused perpetrators girl-friend. The story that he read recounted an incident in which an African-American boyfriend of Ms. Wells had supposedly pointed a gun and told Christine not to call him any more racial epithets.

Bill White is the epitome of those who I spoke about earlier - those who count on the misfits in the "movement" to act on the words and ideologies proffered by so-called leaders. While this piece of human detritus attempts to make something tawdry and debase out of the life of this innocent, he simply serves to show the rest of the world why we do what we do.

Domestic Terrorists Again

Patricia Wells is a 44 year-old housekeeper raising a seventeen-year-old son and living in a trailer park in New Port Richy, Florida. Undoubtedly, she has her struggles with money and paying the bills, etc. But, she has a steady boyfriend and she does what she can. Now, things are different, however. They have been different for awhile – largely because of who lives next door.

The neighboring trailer is surrounded by a fence and flanked with four swastika flags as well as a Confederate banner. The single-wide trailer is generally referred to as a “club-house” and is a hang-out for several of Florida’s numerous neo-Nazi’s. Drinking and planning and raising hell seems to be the norm for the group – that and intimidating and menacing others who live in the Griffin Park Trailer Park.

When the Nazi’s saw that Patricia’s boyfriend was African-American, they were outraged and took every opportunity to let her know that. Last week, according to one of the group, the arguments heated up and Patricia’s boyfriend had had enough.

Christine Cristinzio, is Shawn Plott’s girlfriend and Shawn is head Nazi in Griffin Park. According to Christine, on March 14, Ms. Wells boyfriend pointed a gun at her and told her that he would shoot her if she called him a racial epithet one more time. Now, it is agreed that this was not a very good way to handle the situation as violence never solves anything. However, the reports of vandalism and harassment previously filed by Wells tell the story of how serious things were becoming.

On Thursday morning, March 23, someone wearing what is reported as a gas mask, entered Ms. Wells trailer while she was sleeping and cornered her. He began stabbing and slashing at her wounding her in the face, hands, and arms. Kristofer Guy King, a friend Patricia’s son, was awakened by the screams and commotion. The assailant then turned the knife on him. Kristofer died the next day.

As news accounts surfaced, it was reported that one of the Nazi’s was holed up inside the trailer and might be armed. When the Nazi was arrested without incident, there were firearms in the trailer. John Ditullio, 20, could be seen smiling and smirking while the SWAT team took him into custody. He was wearing a red T-shirt reading “Blood, Honor, Loyalty.

After questioning Ditullio, the police put out an APB on Shawn Plott, the Nazi who actually lived in the trailer. According to an interview, published by the St. Petersburg Times, Ditullio says that he “encountered Plott early Thursday spitting and grinding his teeth,” at which time Plott reportedly told him “I’ve taken care of them forever.”

Plott was arrested on Friday, March 24, and is believed to be the assailant.

In his interview with the Times, John Ditullio tells us that he had only been a member of the group, who claim to be “American Nazi’s,” for a couple of weeks yet he has a swastika tattooed on his chest that he is proud enough of to show to reporters. Claiming that he is “proud of his race,” he went on to explain that joining the group seemed like “…the right thing to do. I felt like I loved them and that they really had my back, that they cared for me. To belong. That was it. Just to belong.”

Well, the need to belong has gotten more than one young person into something that is way beyond anything they had ever dreamed of. Yet, there are parts of John’s “story” that seem almost unbelievable. That he ended up being a patsy for the rest is not disputed. However, the naiveté that must have been present in events that led up to the stabbings seem almost incredulous for someone twenty years old, and apparently “well-seasoned.”

According to John, the night before the stabbings was an occasion of “celebration.” Supposedly the “President” of the “club” was coming home from a trip and his buddies were drinking in honor of that. Ditullio also reported that this was not an unusual thing as they drank “almost everyday.”

He then goes on to tell us that a common initiation practice was to put Xanax into the whiskey of new recruits and this is exactly what they did to him. He claims that he fell asleep and didn’t hear Plott leaving but did hear his return and that he was acting “all strange.” That’s when Plott said “I have taken care of them forever.”

John further reports that the Vice President of the “club” said “Something’s going down, man” and he then gave Ditullio three guns and ordered him to “hold down the fort,” and “shoot at the cops if they came.” Everyone left.

This is pretty much where it all falls apart for me. Having only been a member for a couple of weeks and knowing that something major just happened would certainly have raised the antenna on most sane or rational people’s radar. Regardless of the drinking and the drug, you would think that the sight of the guns and the order to shoot at the cops would have sobered most people up pretty fast. Instead, Ditullio claims that he went back to sleep and when he woke up the trailer was surrounded by police officers who had their guns trained on the clubhouse. What did John do? He claims he was scared so he took four more Xanax, smoked a doobie, and then passed out.

The SWAT team stayed outside during this and the medias cameras rolled telling the public of the standoff in Griffin Park. When the police finally stormed the trailer, Ditullio had the following reaction, “It was funny. You’ve got all these cops for little old me. I didn’t do nothing, man.”

According to reports, those other than Plott were pointing the finger at Ditullio as the stabber, but he didn’t fit the description. To this Ditullio said “They betrayed the Brotherhood.” But, he remained undaunted by all of this claiming that he still believes in his race and that he still respected Plott for “doing what he believed in.”

While John Ditullio is respecting Shawn Plott and believing in his race, a seventeen-year-old child who played in the high school band and had everything to look forward to is about to be buried. While John Ditullio and Shawn Plott and the rest of the members of this “club” are attempting to justify their actions, Patricia Wells is scarred and scared wondering if she will ever be safe again. While John Ditullio and Shawn Plott spin their tales for the police and the media, a family is in mourning and a community is hemorrhaging.

All of this is not only about a vicious attack, a maiming, or a murder. It’s also about a mindset and an ideology that is so aberrant, so despicable, and so vile that it not only offends but assaults the very sensibilities of the sane. To give further credibility to that claim, one has to only read the response of an anonymous poster on my blog:

“Nikki said...
Kristofer Guy King is dead.

March 24, 2006 8:04 PM

“His mother should have considered the risks of being a nigger-fucker when she continuously picked fights with the trailer full of nazis next door. What did she think was going to happen?

“Maybe they should have sent her a nice pecan pie and welcomed her anti-white attacks against them, or held a peaceful protest against her. This is unfortunate all the way around, but when an idiot picks a fight with a gang and tries to get them evicted they must weigh the consequences.

“Some people think they're superheroes and everyone's supposed to bow down before them because they claim the moral highground or it's political correctness they're preaching. Reality steps in and lets them know it doesn't always matter that you were right or wrong, or that some politician agrees with you, it matters who holds the power and will to use force. Just because she felt she was right, does not stop her from getting beaten up or killed by those with opposing views. Even now after her face is all cut up she continues to preach this bullshit about racism and her right to fuck niggers, she still doesn't realize it doesn't matter what rights you say you have unless you can defend them. She should be glad to be alive and shut up if she had any sense, but we all know she will only be more of a bitch and try to spin this into some political issue. I predict she wants to become the Cindy Sheehan of race politics and leave her trailer park life for the political tour circuit to show off her "battle scars' of fighting racism. She's a psycho out looking for attention and approval for her beastiality lifestyle. Just as gays want aproval and make public spectacles of themselves, so to do these sick women who want to have sex with animals.”

Taking this message to the next level, I guess we are to assume that any of us who do not agree with hate and racism, or who choose to live our lives in accordance with our own beliefs rather than those of the neo-Nazi, can and should expect to be beaten or killed for doing so. Additionally, should we be fortunate enough to live after such a beating, and if we know what is good for us, we will change our evil ways and shut the hell up. I guess we should all also assume that if a “gang” of Nazi thugs moves into our neighborhood and attempts to intimidate and terrorize us with baseball bats and sheer brute force that we are to throw up our hands and acquiesce as they have the “power.” Bullshit.

These are the same people who cloak themselves in the free speech mantra while exercising their First Amendment rights. I find that quite interesting. These are the people who erect websites, spew their anti-Semitic and racist venom, and hide behind the First Amendment while abrogating the rights of everyone else who happen to disagree with them.

This latest violence is not an isolated incident. Far too often, lately, I find myself writing about the blood trail and violence that seems to follow the neo-Nazi’s around. Just as often, one of them will step up and say “this is not what we are really all about,” or, “we don’t condone these actions.” Well…bullshit. This is precisely what they are about. They are about hating everything that is non-white and doesn’t fit into their idea of a “White Utopia.” They are about a “White Revolution” and the dissolution of America as we know it. They are terrorists of the domestic variety.

Certainly there are those within the “movement” who would never kill anyone – maybe not even assault anyone. But those same few still send in their dues, still disseminate hate propaganda, and still work toward the stated agenda. That agenda is one that propagates hatred and bigotry and fosters violence in those who have the propensity for such activities. The “movement” itself attracts misfits and criminals, and those who would never engage in such acts know precisely that. As a matter of fact, they depend on that. Armed with that knowledge they cannot be absolved of any guilt for any of the mayhem perpetrated by their puppets.

As long as the American public remains virtually oblivious to the disease that these rodents are spreading, that disease will continue to flourish and spread. The bright side of all of this is that those who are enlightened to what is happening out there are rapidly becoming avid anti-racists. Given the fact that these bilious hate mongers whine and cry about young ARA members and “antis” being so violent toward them, I have but what thing to say – show me how many of you have been killed, or maimed, by an anti. Show me how many communities have been terrorized by anti-racists.

Young Kristofer Guy King has been taken from us because he dared to befriend those who were considered “race traitors.” Patricia Wells has been brutally scarred because of a life-choice to date outside of her race. The Griffin Park Trailer Park community has been traumatized. The students at the local high school have been brought face to face with the ugliest form that hate takes. When do we say “enough is enough?” When do we step up to the plate and say, “Not in our town, not in our community, not in our country, not in our world.” I think the time is now.

You All Share In This

Kristofer Guy King, 17


Every damn time I have to write about things like this I cry. How much more will it take before people say they have had enough? How many bodies will it take? How many bodies are enough? How many parents have to bury their young and mourn their passing before we do the right thing? This bullshit has got to end.

Kristofer Guy King was seventeen years old. He played the trumpet in his high school band and had lots of friends. He was at one of those friends' homes night before last when a man wearing a gas mask entered the home and began to stab his friends' mother, Patricia Wells, in the face and hands. That man then turned the knife on Kris. Kristofer fought for his life - and he lost.

Why? That's the question that everyone keeps asking. Everything, at this juncture, points to the fact that Wells lived next door to a group of neo-Nazi's who had a major problem with the fact that she was dating an African-American man. These "men" - and I DO use the term quite loosely - harassed her, threatened her, and wielded a heavy hand in the neighborhood according to others. It appears that one, at least, followed through on his threats.


Yesterday, police arrested 20 year-old John A. Ditullio, on charges other than the stabbings. From an incident last month, Ditullio was sought and arrested on a probable cause warrant for aggravated Domestic Battery, assault, and witness tampering. He has now become a suspect in a first degree murder case and his bail has been set at one-million dollars.


The person they believe to be the actual perpetrator, however, is another Nazi by the name of Shawn A, Plott who fit the description given by Ms. Wells. Plott has a long record and is known to have been next door to Ms. Wells last night. When the search began, the police believed Plott to be armed and dangerous but the arrest took place without incident.


School officials spent the day counseling with the kids and many of the children made posters that they placed on the fence surrounding the neo-Nazi trailer. Because of the hate and the venom that begets this sort of violence not only has a precious young life been subtracted from us, not only has an innocent woman who works as a housekeeper been victimized, not only is a family mourning their loss - a whole community has been traumatized. Children who should be excitedly looking forward to their upcoming prom and graduation are instead dealing with the terror and the grief that has been the calling card of hatemongers for all too long.

The media is in a frenzy and the immediate community is outraged - but for how long? When the swastikas are removed from the neo-Nazi's trailer, when Kristofer is laid to rest, and when all of the TV stations go back to their usual programming - that outrage will fade and eventually it will be business as usual. Hence, I ask - when is enough ever reached?

The legacy of this so called "movement" is nothing more than hate, destruction, blood, and death. Therefore, whenever someone screams about the "violence" of the anti's they need to show me how many of them have been killed by one of us - they need to show me just how much of their blood has been spilled by anti-racists. And...when someone asks me why I do what I do - I think I'll just pull out my list of victims and shove it right in their face.

Yes...I'm pissed tonight. I'm also very sad. And I will say, one more time...if Kristofer died at the hands of one of you Nazi's...if his death was caused by your hate...then each and every one of you should stand trial - because you are ALL to blame. As far as I am concerned - if these two people were attacked by one of you - your day in court is just around the corner.

Nazi Arrested on Unrelated Charges

Photo from the St. Petersburg Times


John A. Ditullio has been tanken into custody on charges unrelated to the stabbings of Patricia Wells and Kristofer Guy King. Ditullio is pictured at the Orlando rally held a few weeks ago by the National Socialist Movement. Apparently, there has been an ongoing feud between Patricia Wells and the neo-Nazi's who hang out at Ditullio's trailer in New Port Richey, Florida.

Ms. Wells claims that it was one of those Nazi's who stabbed her and a 17-year-old friend of her son even though the perpetrator was wearing a gas mask. Wells and Kristofer King, who remains in critical condition, were both stabbed multiple times. Wells believes that the crime took place because of the neo-Nazi's anger over the fact that she is dating an African-American man. Here is the story:

TO ORIGINAL ARTICLE


Pasco man taken into custody after stabbings
PHIL DAVIS
Published March 23, 2006

NEW PORT RICHEY - The man who stabbed Patricia Wells in the face and hands early Thursday wore a gas mask, but she thinks she knows who did it - one of the neo-Nazis next door.

And the white, 45-year-old housekeeper says she knows why: because she dates a black man.

"I know who it was," she told a throng of reporters gathered at the scene Thursday, a long gash on her face and bandages on both hands. "I don't believe there's anyone else it could have been."

More than 13 hours after the masked man stabbed Wells and a 17-year-old family friend, a Pasco sheriff's SWAT team took a 20-year-old man into custody from a neighboring mobile home, where four swastikas and a Confederate flag flew out front. Sheriff's deputies described the single-wide home at 9321 Teak St. as a neo-Nazi hangout.

John A. Ditullio, 20, offered no resistance but had three guns and several knives nearby when SWAT officers entered the home, Pasco sheriff's spokesman Doug Tobin said.

Late Thursday, detective arrested Ditullio on unrelated charges of aggravated domestic battery, witness tampering and assault. Details on those charges were not available. He had not been charged in Thursday's attack as of 9 p.m., Tobin said.

Ditullio smiled as he was led to a patrol car Thursday afternoon.

"Some of the evidence we collected at the (stabbing) scene did lead up to the trailer where we served the search warrant this afternoon," Tobin said. "Fortunately, it ended peacefully."

Wells was released from the hospital Thursday. The other victim, 17-year-old Kristofer Guy King of Hudson, remained in critical condition late Thursday, Tobin said. King is a friend of Wells' 18-year-old son, who was not home at the time of the attack.

Tobin said it will be up to prosecutors to decide if the attack is a hate crime.

Authorities said the masked man knocked on Wells' door at 9325 Teak St. about 12:30 a.m. and moments later began stabbing her.

"I didn't know at that time what to do, if I should lie down and play dead or if I should get up and run," Wells told reporters. "My instincts told me if I had laid down and tried to play dead he definitely would have killed me.

"I was cornered between the futon and the dresser and he was stabbing me," she continued, "and he finished stabbing me and went after the boy."

Wells escaped and called for help.

The SWAT team arrived at 8:30 a.m. They obtained a search warrant but did not go into the mobile home next door until 1:45 p.m. About twelve blocks were cordoned off around the home during the standoff.

According to sheriff's reports, Wells and her neo-Nazi neighbors have been feuding since January.

Last week, both Wells and 34-year-old Christine Cristinzo, who lives next door, filed conflicting reports about men making threats with guns after trading words about Wells' black friend. Both reports were vague and no charges were filed.

On March 7, Wells told deputies several people next door yelled, "We're going to get you now. You're dead!" and smashed her front door with a chair. Her 18-year-old son said he heard a racial epithet.

"(Wells) advised she has had problems in the past with her next door neighbors due the to the fact she is dating an African-American male and the next door neighbors are neo-Nazis," a deputy wrote. He referred the case to detectives.

In January, Wells accused her neighbors of breaking several windows, but a deputy found insufficient evidence to file charges.

It is difficult to get a clear picture of how residents in Griffin Park feel about the neo-Nazis in their neighborhood. Several residents who were reluctant to give their names said the group frequently menaces the neighborhood with baseball bats.

Others shrugged off the swastikas.

"Hey, it's America. I don't agree with 'em, but I've seen worse," said Bo Coggins, who has lived in the neighborhood for 35 years. "I talked to them Nazis. They don't mess with nobody around here, to tell you the truth."

Times staff photographer Brenda Fitterer and Times researcher Lea Iadarola contributed to this report.

Once Upon A Nazi

What's Up

"Once Upon A Nazi" is a humorous slide show featuring the Hollywood Nazi Clown Troop as led by Bill White. The commentary and the music will have you cracking up.


ONCE UPON A NAZI



What's up in the world of racists and organized hate? Here are a few links to bring you up to date:



Floyd Cochran and Nicole Nichols make comparisons between what is happening on the Nazi Front in Europe and activities closer to home.



Floyd Cochran speaks about the "Northern Nazi's" and the racist recruitment of teens.

A Tragic Tale

ORIGINAL STORY HERE

March 17, 2006
An Officer Seen as a Hero Faces a Year Behind Bars
By RALPH BLUMENTHAL and DAN FROSCH
CLOUDCROFT, N.M. — Sgt. Billy Anders knew something was terribly wrong. The fresh blood spots outside the roadside cabin, the hatchback with the open rear door in the driveway and the instincts he had honed as a big-city cop in San Antonio gave him reason to be alarmed.

His gut was right.

What happened in the next few minutes on that freezing night in December 2004 would leave two men dead, a community in shock and Sergeant Anders, a beloved local sheriff's officer nearing retirement, charged with killing a handcuffed prisoner. A video camera in the sergeant's own patrol truck was unblinking witness.

That the victim was a white supremacist ex-convict, Earl Flippen, who had just killed his pregnant girlfriend and Sergeant Anders's partner, sprayed gunfire around the girlfriend's 3-year-old daughter and barely missed shooting Sergeant Anders at point-blank range, was beside the point.

Sergeant Anders, who received a minimal one-year prison sentence after pleading guilty to voluntary manslaughter with a firearm, says he has trouble remembering exactly what happened but recalls that he fired to save himself and the little girl.

"I remember he was moving and I considered him a threat," he said in a rambling interview. "I don't remember shooting him when he was handcuffed."

Still, said Sergeant Anders, who was sentenced on March 3, his 63rd birthday: "I'm a reasonable person; I can't argue with the videotape. If I crossed the line, I have to take responsibility."

The sergeant spoke on March 9 while working his way through Cloudcroft's quaint wooden shopping arcade, enveloped in goodbye embraces from supporters. [He began serving his sentence on March 10.]

The case has devastated this close-knit frontier town nearly 9,000 feet above Alamogordo's atomic-testing desert, where drivers say they have no need to use their turn signals: everyone already knows where everyone else is going.

Many see Sergeant Anders as a hero, and supporters have raised the $50,000 that his legal defense cost.

"As far as I'm concerned, Billy did everyone a favor," said Charliss Randall, who works in the Copper Butterfly gift shop. Mr. Flippen had already killed his girlfriend, Ms. Randall noted, adding, "Who else would he kill?"

The emergency workers who rushed to the cabin that night credit Sergeant Anders with saving their lives. "I'm convinced that had he not eliminated the threat, Flippen would have started picking us off," Grady McCright, a former volunteer fire chief of a neighboring community, said outside the sentencing hearing.

But the district attorney, Scot D. Key, said he had had no choice: "It goes without saying that when you have a videotape that clearly shows a police execution, it's just screaming for prosecution."

If Sergeant Anders had not agreed to plead guilty, Mr. Key said, federal prosecutors, concerned about the possibility of acquittal by a state jury, were prepared to try him under a civil rights statute that could have sent him to prison for life. His guilty plea carried a sentence of up to seven years; the one year the judge gave him was the lightest possible term.

In truth, Sergeant Anders said, he should not have been on duty the night of Dec. 18, 2004. It was his 11th wedding anniversary, and he was fighting off a case of stomach flu. But when a call came in to 911 reporting a quarrel and shots fired 10 miles east of Cloudcroft, he insisted on joining his partner and best friend, Deputy Robert Hedman.

The call took them to a cabin rented by Mr. Flippen, a 38-year-old career criminal whose "white pride" tattoos proclaimed his membership in the Aryan Brotherhood.

Shortly before the deputies pulled up, Mr. Flippen had shot to death his 30-year-old girlfriend, Deborah Rhoudes, then eight months pregnant, and rolled her body into a rug for loading into his waiting hatchback. Ms. Rhoudes's 3-year-old daughter, Victoria, was also there.

In the interview on March 9, which began at the cabin, now sealed off, Sergeant Anders said a shirtless Mr. Flippen, barring the two officers from entering, had explained the bloodstains as coming from a deer he had killed, and had then slammed the door. Sergeant Anders radioed for backup, while Deputy Hedman crept to the back of the house.

When he heard a shot from the back, Sergeant Anders rushed the cabin. But Mr. Flippen, who in the darkness had slipped through the front door unseen with Victoria, popped up from behind the hatchback and fired a shot from his .357 Magnum Peacemaker at the startled sergeant, who was just feet away.

"It felt like a Civil War cannon in my face," Sergeant Anders recalled. "I thought the left side of my head was gone." Actually the bullet had torn through his jacket, searing his left arm.

In 31 years as a law enforcement officer, he said, he had never fired his weapon on duty, but now he pulled the trigger of his Glock semiautomatic four times, striking Mr. Flippen in the forehead and left hand and arm.

At this point, the sergeant's recollections and the videotape diverge. Repeating what he had told investigators, he said he recalled having seen Mr. Flippen squirming on the ground with the Magnum nearby and having shot him again in the body. Afterward, he said, he moved the gun out of reach and handcuffed him.

But the videotape and its audio from the sergeant's body microphone tell a different story. After downing Mr. Flippen, Sergeant Anders handcuffs him as Victoria, whom Mr. Flippen was helping to raise, wails nearby, over and over: "Don't shoot my daddy!"

Sergeant Anders says: "I won't, honey. Back up, honey."

He tells Mr. Flippen, "You lay there, buddy," and rushes to the back of the house, shouting: "Bob! Bob!" He finds his partner's body — draped over a railing, a bullet in the head — and gasps, "Oh God, Bob!"

Then he returns to Mr. Flippen, shoos the little girl inside and fires a single shot into his chest.

The next police officer on the scene, Terry Flanigan, said he had found Sergeant Anders all but catatonic, propped up on his truck. He found Ms. Rhoudes's body "stuffed in a closetlike garbage," and the little girl, who had minor wounds from a bullet fragment, crying that her sister was still in the house. Officers later realized she had meant her dead mother's unborn baby.

When investigators played the videotape for Sergeant Anders three days after the shootings, he seemed stunned. He said he had no memory of shooting Mr. Flippen after handcuffing him.

"I remember being afraid," he said, according to transcripts of interviews with the investigators. "I remember being worried for Bob. I remember the little girl screaming and carrying, you know, carrying on, being upset. But, God, I don't remember that."

Later, when Sergeant Anders was indicted and turned himself in, the Otero County sheriff, John Blansett, a mammoth, easygoing man, wept.

Fifteen months after the shooting, the case still bruises Cloudcroft, not simply because of Deputy Hedman's death but also out of concern for Sergeant Anders and an appreciation for the hellish circumstances of that night.

By all accounts at the sentencing hearing, Sergeant Anders was more than a standout officer. He was a model citizen known for a warm demeanor and for using humor to defuse dangerous situations.

"Billy was one of the greatest and most compassionate cops we ever had," said Willie Walker, a former colleague with the San Antonio Police Department, where Sergeant Anders spent 23 years as a patrol officer and SWAT team commander before retiring as a captain and moving to Cloudcroft with his wife in 1998.

As Sergeant Anders made his farewell rounds through Cloudcroft on March 9, residents turned out to wish him well. A man in a cowboy hat clapped him on the shoulder, enfolded him in a crushing embrace and said, "Behind you, brother."