U.S. Ends Probe Into Racism-Tinged Picnics

Wrapping up its investigation of the controversial “Good O’ Boy Roundup,” senior Justice Department officials announced Wednesday that they have identified 44 former and current Justice Department employees who have attended the picnics in the South but that none engaged in the allegedly racist activities depicted in a home video released last summer.

But one FBI agent was suspended without pay for five days. He had attended five of the annual “roundups” and once, while there, told a man planning to join the FBI: “Great. We need more good white guys like you in the bureau.”

The video purported to show federal agents attending a 1990 roundup in which racist signs and materials were displayed at a Tennessee campground.

The tape was made to embarrass federal law enforcement, and Justice Department officials acknowledged that, while it was indeed humiliating, it also had a beneficial side effect: prodding the creation of new sensitivity training programs for FBI agents.

“We are disturbed,” said Justice Department Inspector General Michael R. Bromwich, “that an event characterized by rampant public drunkenness, widespread public lewdness and in later years episodes of racist conduct drew participants from [Department of Justice] and other law enforcement organizations.”

But some critics said that the Justice Department had not gone far enough in its investigation.

Laura Murphy, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s legislative office in Washington, said that the work of the Justice Department in providing cultural diversity training for its employees is “woefully undone.”

“These people are out of control,” she said of law enforcement employees who would attend such gatherings. “And when you feel you can get away with things, you behave this way.”

The investigation began after the videotape surfaced in July. It was released by members of an Alabama militia group who were seeking to discredit federal agents.

Bromwich’s report described 16 years of annual roundups, often with rampant alcohol abuse, lewd performances, public nudity and strippers, as well as an “atmosphere hostile to minorities and women.” He found that, of 1,400 people attending the outdoor events, only 44 had ties to federal law enforcement employees and none of them engaged in the “egregious acts of racism.”

His investigation found that racist signs were posted at some picnics, including the one videotaped in 1990, apparently by local police officers, that warned “Nigger check point” and “Any niggers in that car?”

The unidentified FBI agent, who was suspended, also was placed on six months’ probation, received a formal reprimand and was ordered to take new sensitivity training. Asked whether the job action was tantamount to a career-ender for the agent, Bromwich responded: “It’s certainly not a career enhancer.”

Still under investigation is another federal worker with the Treasury Department, and Bromwich has recommended that he be disciplined by that agency. According to Bromwich, the employee “neglected to make others aware of what he had witnessed and initially withheld important information about racist conduct from investigators.”

FBI Director Louis J. Freeh said that the bureau will now implement new cultural diversity training for recruits and that supervisors and managers will receive similar training under a career development program.

“On duty or off duty, no racist or discriminatory conduct by FBI employees will be allowed,” he said. “Such conduct is reprehensible.”