Ex-Klan Leader Says Only He Set Up Cross-Burning
- Share via
An ex-Ku Klux Klan leader testified Thursday that he was the sole organizer of a 1983 cross-burning in Lake View Terrace, and said he told 20 white supremacists who attended that they would not be arrested.
“It was just our little memorial (for a slain police officer),” Frank Silva testified in the trial of four Ku Klux Klan members charged in connection with the event. Silva, who is serving a 40-year prison term on federal racketeering charges stemming from a nationwide wave of racist violence, told the Los Angeles Superior Court jury that he spent months planning the “Klan ritual cross-lighting.”
To avoid legal problems, Silva said, he obtained fire permits from county and city authorities to have a barbecue. “I felt it was my right as a citizen, if I had a permit, to do whatever I wanted to do on my private property,” he testified.
Sign up for Essential California
The most important California stories and recommendations in your inbox every morning.
You may occasionally receive promotional content from the Los Angeles Times.
