Metzger Tells of Strain on Officer-Spy : Racist Leader Testifies in Suit Against City

Wearing a dark brown suit, dark brown tie and a Viking warhead ring on his middle finger, white supremacist Tom Metzger testified Tuesday that a San Diego police undercover officer slowly cracked under the strain of seeing the curtain lifted on his role as a spy inside the Southern California arm of the Ku Klux Klan.

“He just became more nervous, more upset,” Metzger said of former reserve officer Douglas K. Seymour, who is suing the Police Department for mental distress he says he suffered after the police disavowed his work in infiltrating the Klan.

“He talked about his business going down the tubes. He was drinking more. He was having marital problems. It seemed he was gradually coming apart at the seams.”

FBI Card Found

Metzger said Seymour’s cover was blown after he identified himself as an FBI agent during a near-riot at a Klan rally in Oceanside and when an FBI card was inadvertently left in a briefcase Seymour gave to him.

Metzger, who experts say today sits in the top national leadership of the white supremacy movement, also testified that, when he ran for Congress in 1980, the Police Department used Seymour to illegally spy on his campaign.

“We had a press conference when we realized what was happening,” Metzger said. “We revealed what we knew or were pretty sure of, that Mr. Seymour had been working with the San Diego Police Department.

“I knew that something was seriously illegal for the Police Department to be sabotaging my political campaign.”

In his lawsuit, Seymour is hoping to win up to $2.5 million from the city on the contention that he suffered mental problems and lost his wife and construction company after police coerced him into staying too long in the difficult undercover assignment.

He alleges that, although he wanted out of the detail when Metzger ran for Congress, his police supervisors instead forced him to step up his infiltration of Metzger’s campaign.

Further, he contends that police destroyed his police reports and disowned him after Metzger threatened to sue the department for violating the Hatch Act, a federal law that prohibits government workers from participating in politics.

Left the Klan

Metzger, a Fallbrook television repairman, left the Klan in the early 1980s and formed his current organization, the White Aryan Resistance (WAR). He said his son, John Metzger, is national leader of the Aryan Youth Movement, or Skinheads.

In the absence of the jury, Tom Metzger told Superior Judge Raul Rosado that he was reluctant to testify for fear his comments would be used against him in a criminal cross-burning case in Los Angeles County, where Seymour has been called as an expert witness.

“The reason I’m concerned is there is illegal activity in the police agencies. . . . “

But Rosado cut him off, saying: “This is not a soapbox. You are not going to make statements like that.”

Metzger’s testimony in the 11-day-old trial is seen as crucial because he has no love for either Seymour or the Police Department, who have been at odds during the five years since the lawsuit was filed.

“I’m content to let them tear themselves to pieces,” he said during a break outside the downtown San Diego courtroom, surrounded by a small circle of followers.

On the stand, he told the six-man, six-woman jury that he felt betrayed by Seymour.

“Obviously, no one likes a Judas,” he said. “This man had been a close friend. He’d given presents to my kids and my wife, and we’d all been out to dinner. So I didn’t feel good about what he did at all.”

And he told the jury that he considered it unethical for police officers to become involved in right-wing organizations, for whatever reasons.

“It has been a policy of the Klan under my leadership not to recruit police officers of any kind,” he said. “It’s a conflict of interest. You can’t serve two masters.” He testified that, after Seymour joined the Klan, he was eager to fit in and rose quickly to become chief of security for Metzger, the grand dragon.

“He was very generous,” Metzger said in describing Seymour. “He had a big Winnebago I used. A Lincoln automobile we were able to use from time to time. He helped us with travel expenses and gas.”

He said Seymour also gave the Klan mobile radios and copier machines, which Seymour has said were provided by his police supervisors. “If we needed something, we just asked Doug and he dug it up,” Metzger said.

During the campaign, he said, Seymour participated in political strategy sessions and helped set up speeches and rallies. “Mr. Seymour was on call about all the time,” Metzger said.

But he said suspicions were raised about Seymour’s motives.

During an Oceanside event on Andrew Jackson’s birthday, the rally was moved from a town hall to a city park. Police and anti-Klan demonstrators were on hand, fists were thrown and a policeman shot a dog owned by a Klansman. During the melee, Metzger testified, Seymour jumped to the ground and shouted at the crowd not to hurt him because he was an FBI agent.

Later, Metzger said, he found an FBI agent’s business card inside a briefcase Seymour gave him. He said he then put Seymour through a stress-machine test to determine his true identity. He said Seymour was “psychologically a wreck” at that time and soon afterwards left the Klan under “a mutual agreement.”

Russian Roulette

Seymour has testified that he left the Klan after being forced to undergo a Russian roulette session with a loaded gun inside Metzger’s home. Under cross-examination, Metzger said that story is not true.

“My children were right upstairs above my office,” he said. “I’ve never played Russian roulette, period.”

Seymour also testified that he used cocaine many times with Klan members. But Metzger, under cross-examination, said he never saw Seymour use drugs and that his organization did not tolerate drug abuse.

“We lost two members to murder because of drugs,” he said.

A third member was expelled for drug dealing. Asked what happened to him, Metzger said: “He became a drug enforcement agent for the federal government.”