Academy Abandons Investigation. No Culprits Found.
The Road to Hell is paved with good intentions, says an old American proverb. Fortunately for all Americans of goodwill, while the CGA and the CGIS were doing a shadow dance, the Connecticut State General Assembly was taking the lead in an area where initiative and strong leadership are drastically needed.
On 25 March 2008, the Legislature's Judiciary Committee voted 43-0 in favor of a bill that makes it a hate crime to hang a noose on public or private property, without permission of the property owner, and with the intent to harass or intimidate.
A probe to find who left hangman's nooses on the CGC Eagle and at USCGA has been abandoned without finding any of those responsible.
This should have been a slam dunk. The perpetrators were hiding in plain sight. In August of 2007 just after the CGC Eagle returned to New London, Ct., An Informed Party from Houston, Texas wrote:
"Funny. The Academy went on an all out man hunt to find who wrote the name "Webster Smith" on the Admiral's(Van Sice) farewell flag when he "resigned" his post(as Superintendent of the Academy), last year, but they can't find out who put a noose in a bag on a ship with less than a quarter of the amount of eligible suspects and nowhere for that suspect to hide? Quickly, I can narrow it down some more. It was a male victim, no female is likely to walk unwelcomed into a male birthing area. The victim was a cadet, no enlisted crew member will walk into the cadets birthing area...there is separate birthing on the Barque Eagle. We can even bet that the person knew the watch rotation and when the black cadet wouldn't be in the room. Despite what happened in other Coast Guard incidents, I'd be surprised if an actual officer would stoop so low as to perform a racist act. Yep, the young white future officer is smiling in exasperation right now. He is off the hook."
Informed Party
This clearly was an informed party. This should have been considered nothing less than a potential "confidential informant". He/she had to be an officer, cadet, or former cadet. It would appear that he/she had been onboard the Eagle, and perhaps had even trained on the Eagle. This would have been a good place to start an investigation. How could a competent agency start an important investigation with this level of apparent insight and wind up with a failed investigation? This is incredible; and it is a big disappointment. I wonder if this person was even consulted by the CGIS, NCIS, or the FBI.
The Investigators should have started by "weeding out" and then focusing in on any cadet, civilian, enlisted person, or officer who was onboard the CGC Eagle while it was at sea when the first noose incident occurred. If a trained investigator had kept an eye peeled for any body language indicating that someone was fabricating or wanted to talk, that might have narrowed the focus of the investigation. Or if they had identified any cadet willing to talk "off the record", or someone willing to trade information for a "perk", that could have led to rumors and gossip in the ranks. The Law of Probabilities says that there was, at least, one person interviewed who wanted to talk, or to give an indication of where to look. The investigators must have missed the cue.
At this point, I believe the perpetrators have "gone to ground" in Chase Hall. I had hoped for the best but expected the worst from this investigation. From the time the Academy finally admitted to the truth of the noose incidents, a ghostly calm (the kind that exists at the eye of a hurricane) has set in. Now that calm has been shattered by the pathetic platitudes that we tried our best and we could not find a culprit.
That is a shame and a tragedy. In a tragedy or a novel, the most difficult part, I am told, is how to invent The END. Contrary to the ending that the Academy Superintendent, RADM Scott Burhoe, has tried to write to this tragedy, this is not the end. Doug Wisniewski had another ending in mind when he decided to court-martial Webster Smith. That was not the end. Wisniewski wrote a tragedy, and he has moved on to the City by the Bay. The Moving Finger writes, and having writ moves on. Man proposes, but God disposes. We have yet to see the last shoe drop.
I had hoped that these incidents would have been solved and that that would signal the start of a new epoch in the Coast Guard after the Webster Smith Affair. I had hoped it would signal the start of a healing period, a time when the Academy's reputation would be repaired. It certainly has been damaged. I should have been more realistic and less optimistic. Now I see there is no way that the Academy is ever going to sacrifice one of its "fair-haired boys" for a crime of this nature. The way the Case of John K. Miller was handled proof enough of that. There is a standard of justice for Webster Smith and his kind; and, there is a standard of justice for John K. Miller and everybody else.
Someone obviously knows something, but no one is talking. In the old days, before the Class of 1976, cadets treasured their collective reputation and their individual honor. There would have been no Code of Silence, or Conspiracy of Silence. The Blue Flu was unheard of and would not have been tolerated. If necessary a "Blanket Party" initiated by upperclass cadets would have persuaded the guilty party to confess. I remember a certain Mr. D. L. Wegenar in the Class of 1968 who finally with a little help from some of his concerned Classmates decided that it would be in the best interests of the Coast Guard and all future Coast Guard officers for him to resign his appointment as a cadet. That was after he was released from sick-bay. In those days the loyalty of cadets went up towards lofty goals, not outwards to tragically flawed classmates who would never amout to much.
A proper sense of values has not been instilled in these cadets. They have misplaced values. They give their greatest loyalty to their classmates, over and above the institution. They would rather protect a flawed classmate than preserve the moral integrity of the cadet corps and the officer corps. They would rather not be seen as a stoolpigeon or as a rat than be worthy of the traditions of the commissioned officers before them who served with honor and distinction. Honor to them is just a hollow word. It is not a concept, certainly not one that they embrace. They have not fully comprehended the oath that they took as cadets. Many of them will not be worthy of the oath that they intend to take as commissioned officers. Cadets today have no sense of loyalty to the institution or to the Constitution.
This aborted investigation should give all American less confidence in the ability of the Department of Homeland Security and its lead agencies to find a dirty bomb or an improvised explosive device (IED) hidden in one of the thousands of cargo containers that come into American ports every day of the week. Perhaps it is harder to find one of your own than it is to find a total stranger. Strangers just tend to stand out. In point of fact, the only cargo loads of contraband; that being, illegal aliens, found being smuggled into the USA have been those whose ships ran aground just off the coast and the cargo containers were accidentally damaged and came open. Many Chinese illegal aliens have been found in sealed containers with enough rice and water for a six month voyage in a sealed container. When RADM Dick Clark, CGA Class of 1968, was the 11th Coast Guard District Commander, Long Beach, California, that is exactly what happened several times. He was a guest speaker at the Los Angeles Adventurers Club when he commented on the fortuitious sequence of events that lead to the discovery of the contraband human cargo.
What happened in this noose investigation, if it can be called that? Did they fail to get any cooperation from any of the officers or cadets who were onboard the CGC Eagle during the last cruise? That is where this all stated, in the aftermath of the Webster Smith court-martial. That was a controlled environment with a finite and identifiable number of suspects. These investigators couldn't find a Russian at Rockaway Beach or in Little Odessa.
Only in basketball or some other great American sport can it be said that it matters not whether you win or lose, but only how you played the game. This is not a game; this is the real world. Good intentions count for very little. We need results. The American public should expect no less. I cannot help but feel that if the victims of these incidents had not been expendable, then the culprits would have been caught, and we would have had signed confessions. And waterboarding techniques would not have been necessary to extract the confessions. no one would have been subjected to "persuasive interrogation".
Where there is a will there is a way. Since the Webster Smith court-martial, the Academy has shown very little will, and has lost its way in matters of equal protection of the law. We have found the enemy, and he am us, as Togo would say.
Fifty agents from the Coast Guard Criminal Investigation Service (CGIS), the Navy Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) and the FBI spent more than 2,500 hours conducting 226 interviews and reviewing more than 13,000 e-mails. Officials said it was one of the most extensive Coast Guard investigations ever. This was certainly not their finest hour. The investigation was conducted, no doubt, with kid gloves. No one's rights were imfringed. And no results were obtained.
In the Webster Smith case, they appear to have used far fewer resources and achieved much greater results. They managed to find their man, and they came up with a host of disgruntled female cadets willing to perjure themselves at a General Court-martial, all in the interest of stopping an alleged sexual predator. At least, Doug Wisniewski said that he was a sexual predator; and Doug Wisniewski is an honorable man, by an Act of Congress.
No one confessed to or reported witnessing the incidents. That is the hardest part of all of this for me to swallow. Those who tolerate evil are just as guilty as those who perpetrate evil. This has become a matter of honor. The honor of the entire Corps of Cadets has been tarnished, not just those in the Class of 2010.
In the old days, before the Class of 1976, there was group punishment for individual infractions. I remember when Dick Peyser and his classmates in the Class of 1966 punished my entire platoon in the Class of 1968 with forced exercises doing "Butt-Mussles", and "Sweeps" using out 10.2 pound M-1 rifles until one man collapsed from exhaustion or a heat stroke. The reason we were ALL punished was because someone had gone into the latrine and had spit on the toilette seat. No one would confess to having done it, so the entire platoon was punished. We never did find out who had spit on the toilette seat. It was then that we learned what the limits of our torture would be. We would be punished indefinitely until the first man callapsed. In those days Glenn Pruiskma was the designated the duty "fall guy". When he callapsed, we knew the group punishment would end.
“Even though this investigation is now closed, we will continue our work to further diversify and educate our faculty, staff and corps of cadets,” RADM J. Scott Burhoe, the academy’s superintendent said. “I believe that the sheer depth and scope of these investigations sends a clear signal of the Coast Guard’s commitment to provide all of our people with a safe, professional working environment.
"If that person is still around here, my expectation is that they've clearly learned the inappropriateness of their actions and wouldn't repeat them,” said RADM Burhoe.
That is really nice. If Webster Smith had been given that option, then he would not be a registered sex offender today.
U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, D-2nd District, said that it is “not a comforting thought” that someone with such “a bigoted, hateful mindset” could still be affiliated with the Coast Guard, an organization with a mission to serve a diverse public.
The first noose was left in the bag of a Black cadet in July on board the CGC Eagle. The second was found in August on the office floor of a white female officer who had been conducting race relations training in response to the first incident.
ADM Burhoe said the nooses were not necessarily left by a cadet, noting that others were on the ship and at the academy, including faculty, staff and civilian guests.
He did not explain why that distinction made any difference. The purpose of the investigation was to find out who was responsible, cadets or otherwise.
“It is so inconsistent with the values we stand for,” Burhoe said.
The Justice Department has said it is investigating noose incidents at schools, workplaces and neighborhoods around the country. It has called a noose “a powerful symbol of hate and racially motivated violence” recalling the days of lynchings of Blacks. Officials say leaving a noose can constitute a federal civil rights offense under some circumstances.
Earlier this year, a white man in Alexandria, La., was indicted on federal hate crime and conspiracy charges after he was accused of driving past a group of Black civil rights activists with two nooses dangling from the back of his pickup truck. The activists had attended a civil rights march in Jena, La.
The noose incidents in Connecticut prompted the Commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard, Commandant ADM Thad W. Allen, to visit the Coast Guard Academy last year during Homecoming Week and to give the cadets, faculty and staff an unprecedented and powerful speech concerning racial hatred and intolerance.
ADM Allen was joined by U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Maryland, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation, who called for a thorough investigation and decried the incidents as “an act of terrorism.”
Congressman Cummings said Tuesday, 18 March 2008 that he was disappointed the investigators were unable to determine who left the nooses.
“While I wish they had been able to bring someone to justice, I believe once they got the investigation under way, I think they did the best they could,” Cummings said. “I just wish they had started the investigation earlier.”
The academy has launched a series of discussions about teamwork, hate crimes, symbols of hate, diversity and the importance of respect, officials said. Staff is working on a hate crimes and bias-motivated incidents policy for inclusion in the cadet code of regulations.
The academy created a task force in 2006 to examine the culture after Cadet Webster Smith was court-martialed.
Webster Smith filed a discrimination complaint alleging he was treated differently than any other cadets involved in the 9 or more other incidents of sexual improprieties because he was Black. All of the other cadets were given non-judicial punishment or allowed to voluntarily resign from the Academy. Only Webster Smith was given a General Court-martial. He too was deemed expendable.
(Feb 24, 2009)Independent Audit Finds USCG Office of Civil Rights Incompetent.
Employees in the Coast Guard’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) do not have the skills or up-to-date training to handle many of the service’s cases and formal discrimination complaints are not adequately handled, according to an independent report presented to the Coast Guard on February 5.
Terri Dickerson, the office’s director, requested an independent review April 25, 2008, less than one month after an investigation by the Coast Guard Investigative Service, Naval Criminal Investigative Service and the FBI failed to determine who left nooses for a Black Coast Guard Academy cadet and an officer conducting race-relations training in the summer of 2007.
At the same time, an unofficial Coast Guard blog was posting regularly about the office and the director’s alleged inefficiencies, reducing morale among employees and casting OCR in a negative light, according to the report.
The findings are “deeply disturbing and completely unacceptable,” Cummings, D-Md., wrote in a letter to Commandant ADM Thad Allen. Cummings, the chairman of the House subcommittee on the Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation, said he plans to call a hearing in April to further discuss the report.
“The findings of this report demand decisive and comprehensive action to correct what appear to be a number of significant shortfalls in the administration,” he wrote.
The Coast Guard retained Booz Allen Hamilton, a consulting firm with offices throughout the country, to review the entire civil rights program in September 2008, according to a letter from Dickerson to the Department of Homeland Security’s Equal Employment Opportunity Programs.
Coast Guard spokesman Cmdr. Ron LaBrec said the service is thankful for the feedback and is conducting a thorough review of the report and its recommendations.
“The [DHS] Office of Civil Rights and Liberties periodically conducts assessments on its civil rights components and the [OCR] director wanted to do this report now with the ongoing modernization initiative to look across the board and improve the practices in the office and address any allegations that were coming out of blogs or even internal discussions. We take allegations of mistreating [privacy issues] seriously,” LaBrec said.
According to the report, the Coast Guardsmen assigned to ORC often come in with little civil rights experience and serve two-year tours, and “often they leave their post just as they are becoming oriented to the position.” The other Coast Guardsmen in the office are on collateral duty, with the same limited backgrounds, according to the report.
Although training is available, the report said, many employees have not completed the legislatively mandated initial or refresher training. In some instances training was behind up to five years.
“Some staff members lack the requisite skills, abilities, and training to effectively perform the duties of their positions, thereby diminishing effectiveness of the divisions/teams,” according to the report.
LaBrec said the “decentralized” structure led to the delinquency in training and the Coast Guard is looking to “standardize” and “improve” its training program. There are 22 full-time positions within OCR, five of which are military, but that likely is not enough to sufficiently handle the additional responsibilities related to the increased caseload, according to the report.
Although Booz Allen acknowledges that some of the recommendations listed in the report cannot be accomplished with the office’s $788,459 budget, OCR’s Web site says the recommendations are under review and lists some that have either already been completed or can be accomplished in the near future.
Those include:
• Restructuring the office to “optimize the use of our military personnel” and take advantage of existing training and resources.
• Analyze the workload to ensure statutory and non-statutory obligations are being met.
LaBrec said it is too early to determine what recommendations would require additional funding or how much additional money would be needed to accomplish those goals.
“The review reaffirmed many positive aspects of the Coast Guard civil rights program. The report also makes clear there is work ahead,” Dickerson wrote in Thursday’s Alcoast. “Foremost, consistent with past similar studies, the BAH team found we must restructure the [equal employment opportunity] function, and secondarily, shore up our equal employment opportunity/equal opportunity product lines so that they more optimally support our civil rights service providers and work force.”
LaBrec also said the 58 formal civil rights complains OCR received in fiscal year 2007, roughly one per 1,000 people, shows the office is doing some things right, since several of the other DHS departments have a much higher number of civil rights complaints per capita.
Allen told Coast Guard Academy cadets and faculty in October 2007 that racial bigotry will not be accepted and goes against the service’s ethos and humanitarian mission. In August 2008, he released a service-wide message outlining plans to improve diversity throughout the service.
As part of the new initiative, every flag officer and senior executive service member is required to attend one diversity conference a year and they are expected to build relationships with minority-based “institutions of higher education.”
The first noose, which garnered national attention, was left in the bag of a Black cadet in July 2007 onboard the Coast Guard cutter Eagle. The second was found in August on the office floor of a white female officer who had been conducting race relations training.
Thurgood Marshall did more to improve the life of the damned, the dispossessed, and the downtroddened tha any other attorney in the 20th century. He fought for the underdog in American society as an attorney and as a justice of the U. S. Supreme Court. As chief counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund for over 25 years, he fought Jim Crow segregation in the snake pits and hell holes of the solid South. He won 29 of 32 cases he argued before the Supreme Court; and, he should have won all of them. In a perfect and just world, he would have. His record of successful cases before the high court stands today unparalleled in American judicial history. President Lyndon baines Johnson appointed him to the Supreme Court in 1967 where he served for 34 years.
When he traveled in the South, Thurgood Marshall never confronted "Jim Crow" headon; that is, he never sat in railway stations or lunch counters reserved "for whites only". However, in forays down South he could not always avoid person danger. In 1946 in Columbia, Tennessee, along with other defense counsels, he drove 200 miles round-trip daily from Nashville,TN to the trial in Colunbia,TN. There was no safe place for a Black lawyer to stay in Columbia, TN. At one point police officers picked him up and took him alone in their car, and charged him with drunk driving. Carl Rowan wrote a detailed newspaper article about how the police tried to lead Attorney Thurgood Marshall to the banks of a nearby river where a lynch mob had a noose hanging from a tree, ready to lynch him. Brave armed Black citizens came to his rescue. A courageous white magistrate smelled his breath and proclaimed him sober and he was able to return to Nashvill. (Crusaders in the Courts, by Jack Greenberg, 1994, Basic Books, Harper Collins, p. 31,32)
In the Jim Crow segregated South, he was so revered in Black America that people mostly spoke of him in whispered tones. He is easily the most important American of this century. He rose from an humble birth to a position higher than any Black American before him. He built his reputation slowly in jerkwater southern towns where he was outnumbered but never outmatched and never outgunned in the legal arena. In virtually every case he was fighting for the right against a twisted white justice system administered by southern judges and sheriffs who had few second thoughts about beating in black heads.
Thurgood Marshall was the only Black leader in America during the Civil Rights era who could say that he defeated segregation where it really counted; that was, in the courts. He legal strategy was based on the U. S. Constitution. He forced civil and constitutional rights to be extended equally to the poorest and blackest American citizens as well as poor whites. The Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King would never have won his first victory, the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott, if Thurgood Marshall and his legal team had not first won a Supreme Court ruling outlawing segregation on the city buses. Battles were fought in the streets, but the victories were won in the courts.
Also, it was Thurgood Marshall who argued the case of Brown v. Bd of Education before the Supreme Court. This case ended segregation in public schools.
Thomas G. Krattenmaker, a constitutional law professor at Georgetown University Law Center, said it best. He said, "when I think of great American lawyers, I think of Thurgood Marshall,, Abe Lincoln and Daniel Webster. In the 20th Century only Earl Warren approaches Thurgood Marshall. Marshall is certainly the most important American lawyer of the 20th Century."
Drew Days, a former law professor at Yale University Law School, said that "Thurgood Marshall was the living embodiment of how far we as Americans have come on the major concern in our history-race- and how far we still have to go. He was the conscience of this nation. In the law, he remains our supreme conscience."
(Thurgood Marshall, Justice For All, by R. Goldman and D. Gallen, 1992 bt Caroll & Graf Publishers, Inc, Ny,Ny, 141,142.)
On 25 March 2008, the Legislature's Judiciary Committee voted 43-0 in favor of a bill that makes it a hate crime to hang a noose on public or private property, without permission of the property owner, and with the intent to harass or intimidate.
A probe to find who left hangman's nooses on the CGC Eagle and at USCGA has been abandoned without finding any of those responsible.
This should have been a slam dunk. The perpetrators were hiding in plain sight. In August of 2007 just after the CGC Eagle returned to New London, Ct., An Informed Party from Houston, Texas wrote:
"Funny. The Academy went on an all out man hunt to find who wrote the name "Webster Smith" on the Admiral's(Van Sice) farewell flag when he "resigned" his post(as Superintendent of the Academy), last year, but they can't find out who put a noose in a bag on a ship with less than a quarter of the amount of eligible suspects and nowhere for that suspect to hide? Quickly, I can narrow it down some more. It was a male victim, no female is likely to walk unwelcomed into a male birthing area. The victim was a cadet, no enlisted crew member will walk into the cadets birthing area...there is separate birthing on the Barque Eagle. We can even bet that the person knew the watch rotation and when the black cadet wouldn't be in the room. Despite what happened in other Coast Guard incidents, I'd be surprised if an actual officer would stoop so low as to perform a racist act. Yep, the young white future officer is smiling in exasperation right now. He is off the hook."
Informed Party
This clearly was an informed party. This should have been considered nothing less than a potential "confidential informant". He/she had to be an officer, cadet, or former cadet. It would appear that he/she had been onboard the Eagle, and perhaps had even trained on the Eagle. This would have been a good place to start an investigation. How could a competent agency start an important investigation with this level of apparent insight and wind up with a failed investigation? This is incredible; and it is a big disappointment. I wonder if this person was even consulted by the CGIS, NCIS, or the FBI.
The Investigators should have started by "weeding out" and then focusing in on any cadet, civilian, enlisted person, or officer who was onboard the CGC Eagle while it was at sea when the first noose incident occurred. If a trained investigator had kept an eye peeled for any body language indicating that someone was fabricating or wanted to talk, that might have narrowed the focus of the investigation. Or if they had identified any cadet willing to talk "off the record", or someone willing to trade information for a "perk", that could have led to rumors and gossip in the ranks. The Law of Probabilities says that there was, at least, one person interviewed who wanted to talk, or to give an indication of where to look. The investigators must have missed the cue.
At this point, I believe the perpetrators have "gone to ground" in Chase Hall. I had hoped for the best but expected the worst from this investigation. From the time the Academy finally admitted to the truth of the noose incidents, a ghostly calm (the kind that exists at the eye of a hurricane) has set in. Now that calm has been shattered by the pathetic platitudes that we tried our best and we could not find a culprit.
That is a shame and a tragedy. In a tragedy or a novel, the most difficult part, I am told, is how to invent The END. Contrary to the ending that the Academy Superintendent, RADM Scott Burhoe, has tried to write to this tragedy, this is not the end. Doug Wisniewski had another ending in mind when he decided to court-martial Webster Smith. That was not the end. Wisniewski wrote a tragedy, and he has moved on to the City by the Bay. The Moving Finger writes, and having writ moves on. Man proposes, but God disposes. We have yet to see the last shoe drop.
I had hoped that these incidents would have been solved and that that would signal the start of a new epoch in the Coast Guard after the Webster Smith Affair. I had hoped it would signal the start of a healing period, a time when the Academy's reputation would be repaired. It certainly has been damaged. I should have been more realistic and less optimistic. Now I see there is no way that the Academy is ever going to sacrifice one of its "fair-haired boys" for a crime of this nature. The way the Case of John K. Miller was handled proof enough of that. There is a standard of justice for Webster Smith and his kind; and, there is a standard of justice for John K. Miller and everybody else.
Someone obviously knows something, but no one is talking. In the old days, before the Class of 1976, cadets treasured their collective reputation and their individual honor. There would have been no Code of Silence, or Conspiracy of Silence. The Blue Flu was unheard of and would not have been tolerated. If necessary a "Blanket Party" initiated by upperclass cadets would have persuaded the guilty party to confess. I remember a certain Mr. D. L. Wegenar in the Class of 1968 who finally with a little help from some of his concerned Classmates decided that it would be in the best interests of the Coast Guard and all future Coast Guard officers for him to resign his appointment as a cadet. That was after he was released from sick-bay. In those days the loyalty of cadets went up towards lofty goals, not outwards to tragically flawed classmates who would never amout to much.
A proper sense of values has not been instilled in these cadets. They have misplaced values. They give their greatest loyalty to their classmates, over and above the institution. They would rather protect a flawed classmate than preserve the moral integrity of the cadet corps and the officer corps. They would rather not be seen as a stoolpigeon or as a rat than be worthy of the traditions of the commissioned officers before them who served with honor and distinction. Honor to them is just a hollow word. It is not a concept, certainly not one that they embrace. They have not fully comprehended the oath that they took as cadets. Many of them will not be worthy of the oath that they intend to take as commissioned officers. Cadets today have no sense of loyalty to the institution or to the Constitution.
This aborted investigation should give all American less confidence in the ability of the Department of Homeland Security and its lead agencies to find a dirty bomb or an improvised explosive device (IED) hidden in one of the thousands of cargo containers that come into American ports every day of the week. Perhaps it is harder to find one of your own than it is to find a total stranger. Strangers just tend to stand out. In point of fact, the only cargo loads of contraband; that being, illegal aliens, found being smuggled into the USA have been those whose ships ran aground just off the coast and the cargo containers were accidentally damaged and came open. Many Chinese illegal aliens have been found in sealed containers with enough rice and water for a six month voyage in a sealed container. When RADM Dick Clark, CGA Class of 1968, was the 11th Coast Guard District Commander, Long Beach, California, that is exactly what happened several times. He was a guest speaker at the Los Angeles Adventurers Club when he commented on the fortuitious sequence of events that lead to the discovery of the contraband human cargo.
What happened in this noose investigation, if it can be called that? Did they fail to get any cooperation from any of the officers or cadets who were onboard the CGC Eagle during the last cruise? That is where this all stated, in the aftermath of the Webster Smith court-martial. That was a controlled environment with a finite and identifiable number of suspects. These investigators couldn't find a Russian at Rockaway Beach or in Little Odessa.
Only in basketball or some other great American sport can it be said that it matters not whether you win or lose, but only how you played the game. This is not a game; this is the real world. Good intentions count for very little. We need results. The American public should expect no less. I cannot help but feel that if the victims of these incidents had not been expendable, then the culprits would have been caught, and we would have had signed confessions. And waterboarding techniques would not have been necessary to extract the confessions. no one would have been subjected to "persuasive interrogation".
Where there is a will there is a way. Since the Webster Smith court-martial, the Academy has shown very little will, and has lost its way in matters of equal protection of the law. We have found the enemy, and he am us, as Togo would say.
Fifty agents from the Coast Guard Criminal Investigation Service (CGIS), the Navy Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) and the FBI spent more than 2,500 hours conducting 226 interviews and reviewing more than 13,000 e-mails. Officials said it was one of the most extensive Coast Guard investigations ever. This was certainly not their finest hour. The investigation was conducted, no doubt, with kid gloves. No one's rights were imfringed. And no results were obtained.
In the Webster Smith case, they appear to have used far fewer resources and achieved much greater results. They managed to find their man, and they came up with a host of disgruntled female cadets willing to perjure themselves at a General Court-martial, all in the interest of stopping an alleged sexual predator. At least, Doug Wisniewski said that he was a sexual predator; and Doug Wisniewski is an honorable man, by an Act of Congress.
No one confessed to or reported witnessing the incidents. That is the hardest part of all of this for me to swallow. Those who tolerate evil are just as guilty as those who perpetrate evil. This has become a matter of honor. The honor of the entire Corps of Cadets has been tarnished, not just those in the Class of 2010.
In the old days, before the Class of 1976, there was group punishment for individual infractions. I remember when Dick Peyser and his classmates in the Class of 1966 punished my entire platoon in the Class of 1968 with forced exercises doing "Butt-Mussles", and "Sweeps" using out 10.2 pound M-1 rifles until one man collapsed from exhaustion or a heat stroke. The reason we were ALL punished was because someone had gone into the latrine and had spit on the toilette seat. No one would confess to having done it, so the entire platoon was punished. We never did find out who had spit on the toilette seat. It was then that we learned what the limits of our torture would be. We would be punished indefinitely until the first man callapsed. In those days Glenn Pruiskma was the designated the duty "fall guy". When he callapsed, we knew the group punishment would end.
“Even though this investigation is now closed, we will continue our work to further diversify and educate our faculty, staff and corps of cadets,” RADM J. Scott Burhoe, the academy’s superintendent said. “I believe that the sheer depth and scope of these investigations sends a clear signal of the Coast Guard’s commitment to provide all of our people with a safe, professional working environment.
"If that person is still around here, my expectation is that they've clearly learned the inappropriateness of their actions and wouldn't repeat them,” said RADM Burhoe.
That is really nice. If Webster Smith had been given that option, then he would not be a registered sex offender today.
U.S. Rep. Joe Courtney, D-2nd District, said that it is “not a comforting thought” that someone with such “a bigoted, hateful mindset” could still be affiliated with the Coast Guard, an organization with a mission to serve a diverse public.
The first noose was left in the bag of a Black cadet in July on board the CGC Eagle. The second was found in August on the office floor of a white female officer who had been conducting race relations training in response to the first incident.
ADM Burhoe said the nooses were not necessarily left by a cadet, noting that others were on the ship and at the academy, including faculty, staff and civilian guests.
He did not explain why that distinction made any difference. The purpose of the investigation was to find out who was responsible, cadets or otherwise.
“It is so inconsistent with the values we stand for,” Burhoe said.
The Justice Department has said it is investigating noose incidents at schools, workplaces and neighborhoods around the country. It has called a noose “a powerful symbol of hate and racially motivated violence” recalling the days of lynchings of Blacks. Officials say leaving a noose can constitute a federal civil rights offense under some circumstances.
Earlier this year, a white man in Alexandria, La., was indicted on federal hate crime and conspiracy charges after he was accused of driving past a group of Black civil rights activists with two nooses dangling from the back of his pickup truck. The activists had attended a civil rights march in Jena, La.
The noose incidents in Connecticut prompted the Commandant of the U.S. Coast Guard, Commandant ADM Thad W. Allen, to visit the Coast Guard Academy last year during Homecoming Week and to give the cadets, faculty and staff an unprecedented and powerful speech concerning racial hatred and intolerance.
ADM Allen was joined by U.S. Rep. Elijah Cummings, D-Maryland, chairman of the House Subcommittee on Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation, who called for a thorough investigation and decried the incidents as “an act of terrorism.”
Congressman Cummings said Tuesday, 18 March 2008 that he was disappointed the investigators were unable to determine who left the nooses.
“While I wish they had been able to bring someone to justice, I believe once they got the investigation under way, I think they did the best they could,” Cummings said. “I just wish they had started the investigation earlier.”
The academy has launched a series of discussions about teamwork, hate crimes, symbols of hate, diversity and the importance of respect, officials said. Staff is working on a hate crimes and bias-motivated incidents policy for inclusion in the cadet code of regulations.
The academy created a task force in 2006 to examine the culture after Cadet Webster Smith was court-martialed.
Webster Smith filed a discrimination complaint alleging he was treated differently than any other cadets involved in the 9 or more other incidents of sexual improprieties because he was Black. All of the other cadets were given non-judicial punishment or allowed to voluntarily resign from the Academy. Only Webster Smith was given a General Court-martial. He too was deemed expendable.
(Feb 24, 2009)Independent Audit Finds USCG Office of Civil Rights Incompetent.
Employees in the Coast Guard’s Office of Civil Rights (OCR) do not have the skills or up-to-date training to handle many of the service’s cases and formal discrimination complaints are not adequately handled, according to an independent report presented to the Coast Guard on February 5.
Terri Dickerson, the office’s director, requested an independent review April 25, 2008, less than one month after an investigation by the Coast Guard Investigative Service, Naval Criminal Investigative Service and the FBI failed to determine who left nooses for a Black Coast Guard Academy cadet and an officer conducting race-relations training in the summer of 2007.
At the same time, an unofficial Coast Guard blog was posting regularly about the office and the director’s alleged inefficiencies, reducing morale among employees and casting OCR in a negative light, according to the report.
The findings are “deeply disturbing and completely unacceptable,” Cummings, D-Md., wrote in a letter to Commandant ADM Thad Allen. Cummings, the chairman of the House subcommittee on the Coast Guard and Maritime Transportation, said he plans to call a hearing in April to further discuss the report.
“The findings of this report demand decisive and comprehensive action to correct what appear to be a number of significant shortfalls in the administration,” he wrote.
The Coast Guard retained Booz Allen Hamilton, a consulting firm with offices throughout the country, to review the entire civil rights program in September 2008, according to a letter from Dickerson to the Department of Homeland Security’s Equal Employment Opportunity Programs.
Coast Guard spokesman Cmdr. Ron LaBrec said the service is thankful for the feedback and is conducting a thorough review of the report and its recommendations.
“The [DHS] Office of Civil Rights and Liberties periodically conducts assessments on its civil rights components and the [OCR] director wanted to do this report now with the ongoing modernization initiative to look across the board and improve the practices in the office and address any allegations that were coming out of blogs or even internal discussions. We take allegations of mistreating [privacy issues] seriously,” LaBrec said.
According to the report, the Coast Guardsmen assigned to ORC often come in with little civil rights experience and serve two-year tours, and “often they leave their post just as they are becoming oriented to the position.” The other Coast Guardsmen in the office are on collateral duty, with the same limited backgrounds, according to the report.
Although training is available, the report said, many employees have not completed the legislatively mandated initial or refresher training. In some instances training was behind up to five years.
“Some staff members lack the requisite skills, abilities, and training to effectively perform the duties of their positions, thereby diminishing effectiveness of the divisions/teams,” according to the report.
LaBrec said the “decentralized” structure led to the delinquency in training and the Coast Guard is looking to “standardize” and “improve” its training program. There are 22 full-time positions within OCR, five of which are military, but that likely is not enough to sufficiently handle the additional responsibilities related to the increased caseload, according to the report.
Although Booz Allen acknowledges that some of the recommendations listed in the report cannot be accomplished with the office’s $788,459 budget, OCR’s Web site says the recommendations are under review and lists some that have either already been completed or can be accomplished in the near future.
Those include:
• Restructuring the office to “optimize the use of our military personnel” and take advantage of existing training and resources.
• Analyze the workload to ensure statutory and non-statutory obligations are being met.
LaBrec said it is too early to determine what recommendations would require additional funding or how much additional money would be needed to accomplish those goals.
“The review reaffirmed many positive aspects of the Coast Guard civil rights program. The report also makes clear there is work ahead,” Dickerson wrote in Thursday’s Alcoast. “Foremost, consistent with past similar studies, the BAH team found we must restructure the [equal employment opportunity] function, and secondarily, shore up our equal employment opportunity/equal opportunity product lines so that they more optimally support our civil rights service providers and work force.”
LaBrec also said the 58 formal civil rights complains OCR received in fiscal year 2007, roughly one per 1,000 people, shows the office is doing some things right, since several of the other DHS departments have a much higher number of civil rights complaints per capita.
Allen told Coast Guard Academy cadets and faculty in October 2007 that racial bigotry will not be accepted and goes against the service’s ethos and humanitarian mission. In August 2008, he released a service-wide message outlining plans to improve diversity throughout the service.
As part of the new initiative, every flag officer and senior executive service member is required to attend one diversity conference a year and they are expected to build relationships with minority-based “institutions of higher education.”
The first noose, which garnered national attention, was left in the bag of a Black cadet in July 2007 onboard the Coast Guard cutter Eagle. The second was found in August on the office floor of a white female officer who had been conducting race relations training.
Thurgood Marshall did more to improve the life of the damned, the dispossessed, and the downtroddened tha any other attorney in the 20th century. He fought for the underdog in American society as an attorney and as a justice of the U. S. Supreme Court. As chief counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund for over 25 years, he fought Jim Crow segregation in the snake pits and hell holes of the solid South. He won 29 of 32 cases he argued before the Supreme Court; and, he should have won all of them. In a perfect and just world, he would have. His record of successful cases before the high court stands today unparalleled in American judicial history. President Lyndon baines Johnson appointed him to the Supreme Court in 1967 where he served for 34 years.
When he traveled in the South, Thurgood Marshall never confronted "Jim Crow" headon; that is, he never sat in railway stations or lunch counters reserved "for whites only". However, in forays down South he could not always avoid person danger. In 1946 in Columbia, Tennessee, along with other defense counsels, he drove 200 miles round-trip daily from Nashville,TN to the trial in Colunbia,TN. There was no safe place for a Black lawyer to stay in Columbia, TN. At one point police officers picked him up and took him alone in their car, and charged him with drunk driving. Carl Rowan wrote a detailed newspaper article about how the police tried to lead Attorney Thurgood Marshall to the banks of a nearby river where a lynch mob had a noose hanging from a tree, ready to lynch him. Brave armed Black citizens came to his rescue. A courageous white magistrate smelled his breath and proclaimed him sober and he was able to return to Nashvill. (Crusaders in the Courts, by Jack Greenberg, 1994, Basic Books, Harper Collins, p. 31,32)
In the Jim Crow segregated South, he was so revered in Black America that people mostly spoke of him in whispered tones. He is easily the most important American of this century. He rose from an humble birth to a position higher than any Black American before him. He built his reputation slowly in jerkwater southern towns where he was outnumbered but never outmatched and never outgunned in the legal arena. In virtually every case he was fighting for the right against a twisted white justice system administered by southern judges and sheriffs who had few second thoughts about beating in black heads.
Thurgood Marshall was the only Black leader in America during the Civil Rights era who could say that he defeated segregation where it really counted; that was, in the courts. He legal strategy was based on the U. S. Constitution. He forced civil and constitutional rights to be extended equally to the poorest and blackest American citizens as well as poor whites. The Reverend Doctor Martin Luther King would never have won his first victory, the Montgomery, Alabama bus boycott, if Thurgood Marshall and his legal team had not first won a Supreme Court ruling outlawing segregation on the city buses. Battles were fought in the streets, but the victories were won in the courts.
Also, it was Thurgood Marshall who argued the case of Brown v. Bd of Education before the Supreme Court. This case ended segregation in public schools.
Thomas G. Krattenmaker, a constitutional law professor at Georgetown University Law Center, said it best. He said, "when I think of great American lawyers, I think of Thurgood Marshall,, Abe Lincoln and Daniel Webster. In the 20th Century only Earl Warren approaches Thurgood Marshall. Marshall is certainly the most important American lawyer of the 20th Century."
Drew Days, a former law professor at Yale University Law School, said that "Thurgood Marshall was the living embodiment of how far we as Americans have come on the major concern in our history-race- and how far we still have to go. He was the conscience of this nation. In the law, he remains our supreme conscience."
(Thurgood Marshall, Justice For All, by R. Goldman and D. Gallen, 1992 bt Caroll & Graf Publishers, Inc, Ny,Ny, 141,142.)
Labels: Cadet Webster Smith.
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