October 24, 1999

Counter Punch Punishes Klans

Violence erupted at the Ku Klux Klan's lower

Manhattan rally yesterday as one of the leaders was pummeled - and three cops were injured - before members of the unmasked hate group skulked away from 6,000 screaming counter-protesters.

A mere 17 Ku Klux Klan ralliers marched to Foley Square amid a large cop presence and widespread chants of "KKK, go away!" and "Leave our town alone" by the emotionally-charged anti-KKK ralliers at two counter-protests.

Seven people were arrested for prompting the day's sporadic violent outbursts, which ended in an ugly skirmish between cops in riot gear and anti-Klan protesters.

The first violence came at 2 p.m., as the maskless KKK members walked toward their barricaded pen.

A Brooklyn social studies teacher allegedly leaped at the group's local Grand Dragon, Jim Sheeley, and punched him in the left eye.

Harvey Mason, 56, of Park Slope, was charged with assault after the incident, where he and two other men allegedly pretended to be KKK supporters to get near the group.

"Death to the Klan!" they cried as they were dragged away by cops.

"I wish he had broken [Sheeley's] jaw," Mason's wife, Emma, said later. "How could anybody be happy with what's going on? He's not a violent man. He's just annoyed and frustrated at what's happened."

Derek Pearl, 62, another Brooklyn teacher who was charged with disorderly conduct in the incident, said after he was released:

"As far as I'm concerned, I wanted to put my hands around [Sheeley's] neck to try and strangle him. If the eight cops hadn't dragged me, I would have gotten him."

Denied a loudspeaker permit by the NYPD, the KKK ralliers stood silently in the pen, some sporting their trademark pointy caps and several wearing sunglasses. Their lawyer, New York Civil Liberties Union head Norman Siegel, and two skinheads were at their side.

"We can't get our message out," said national Imperial Wizard Jeffrey Berry. "We are silenced ... 80 to 100 people would have shown up had they been able to wear their hoods."

"We're fired up! No more talk! Klan, crawl back under your rock!" the protesters, who were also penned into barricades, shouted at Berry and his cohorts.

The KKK rally started just moments after U.S. Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsberg struck down the group's latest appeal to be allowed to march in masks.

The group - including two women - was much smaller than the 50 to 80 organizers had predicted.

At first, they stood smiling with their flags.

But after 70 minutes of heckling, they raised their arms in a Nazi salute, and walked into a side door at the Manhattan Supreme Court building at 60 Centre St., where cops told them they should take off their robes if they wanted to get out of the building safely through the rear entrance, a City Hall source said.

Mayor Giuliani praised the 1,000 cops who guarded the events for being "restrained," and for keeping mayhem to a minimum. Three cops were hurt, including Community Affairs Officer Letty Mojica, who was struck by a "D" battery hurled from the anti-KKK group.

As the rally wound down in the late afternoon, cops clashed with a group of protesters who clogged the streets near the Brooklyn Bridge.

That incident took place just after a crowd of some 100 anti-Klan protesters chased a woman screaming racial epithets into the Municipal Building.