Metzger Cross-Examines Self on Witness Stand

White supremacist Tom Metzger, representing himself in a $10-million wrongful death case, cross-examined himself on the witness stand and answered questions from his son Wednesday, then grilled the police chief and district attorney.

The unusual events came as the Fallbrook, Calif., TV repairman, former Ku Klux Klan grand dragon and chief of his own White Aryan Resistance group stayed on the witness stand a day after being questioned by Morris Dees, a southern civil rights attorney representing the plaintiffs.

Metzger, 52, and his son John, 22, claim they cannot afford attorneys for the lawsuit brought by two civil rights groups on behalf of the family of Mulugeta Seraw, 27, an Ethiopian student who was beaten to death by three “skinheads” in Portland in 1988.

The suit claims the Metzgers sent three White Aryan Resistance associates to Portland to spread their teachings of hatred and violence against minorities and Jews. The suit claims the Metzgers should be held responsible for Seraw’s death.

Also named in the suit are Kenneth Mieske and Kyle Brewster, two of Seraw’s killers, who were members of the Portland skinhead group East Side White Pride.

Armed with a list of questions he posed to himself, Metzger claimed to have had little experience with assault rifles and said he never trained anyone to use those weapons or others, including baseball bats like the one that cracked Seraw’s skull. He also denied teaching skinheads or anyone else to hurt people.

“Do you train anyone in weapons, knives or baseball-bat violence? And the answer is no,” he said. “I don’t train anybody because I don’t know how to train them. I don’t do it, and I don’t authorize it.”

“Mr. Metzger, do you teach skinheads or anyone else to kill or hurt people? No, never have,” he said, insisting he uses only “legitimate means” of persuasion, such as his WAR newspaper and TV program “Race and Reason.”

At the end of his self-cross-examination, Metzger said, “Mr. Metzger, I’m through with you.”

Under questioning by his son, Metzger said he was never questioned by authorities about the Seraw killing or any of his legal activities, including his taped telephone “hot line” messages.

Metzger has vowed to continue his white separatist work, whatever the verdict. But in a veiled threat to the government, he said that, if his avenues of free speech are taken away, “All bets are off, and I can’t tell you what I might do then.”

The plaintiffs called Police Chief Richard Walker and Multnomah County Dist. Atty. Michael Schrunk to the stand. Both firmly denied Metzger’s claims that the WAR agents sent to Portland were actually paid police informants and “agent provocateurs.” Metzger made those claims in a $10-million countersuit.

Under questioning by Metzger, Schrunk said most of the perpetrators of racial intimidation have been white and most of the victims black and Hispanic.

Asked if laws against “hate” crimes open a “Pandora’s Box” and clog the court dockets, Schrunk said that has not proven to be the case.

Walker acknowledged that Portland police use paid informants, but said that, as far as he knows, none were used in the Seraw case.