Army vet risked his life to expose who was in the KKK : 2005 to 2015
By: NPR. org
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
December 22, 20217:04 AM ET
The Associated Press
JACKSONVILLE, Fla. — For nearly 10 years, Joseph Moore lived a secret double life.
At times the U.S. Army veteran donned a white robe and hood as a hit man for the Ku Klux Klan in North Florida. He attended clandestine meetings and participated in cross burnings. He even helped plan the murder of a Black man.
However, Moore wore something else during his years in the klan - a wire for the FBI. He recorded his conversations with his fellow klansmen, sometimes even captured video, and shared what he learned with federal agents trying to crack down on white supremacists in Florida law enforcement.
One minor mistake, one tell, he believed, meant a certain, violent death.
"I had to realize that this man would shoot me in the face in a heartbeat," Moore said in a deep, slow drawl. He sat in his living room recently amid twinkling lights on a Christmas tree, remembering a particularly scary meeting in 2015. But it was true of many of his days.
Before such meetings, he would sit alone in his truck, his diaphragm heaving with the deep breathing techniques he learned as an Army-trained sniper.
The married father of four would help the federal government foil at least two murder plots, according to court records from the criminal trial for two of the klansmen. He was also an active informant when the FBI exposed klan members working as law enforcement officers in Florida at the city, county and state levels.
Today, he and his family live under new names in a Florida subdivision of manicured lawns where his kids play in the street. Geese wander slowly between man-made lakes. Apart from testifying in court, the 50-year-old has never discussed his undercover work in the KKK publicly. But he reached out to a reporter after The Associated Press published a series of stories about white supremacists working in Florida's prisons that were based, in part, on records and recordings detailing his work with the FBI.
"The FBI wanted me to gather as much information about these individuals and confirm their identities," Moore said of law enforcement officers who were active members of or working with the klan.
"From where I sat, with the intelligence laid out, I can tell you that none of these agencies have any control over any of it. It is more prevalent and consequential than any of them are willing to admit."
Less than two years after Joseph Moore signed his Ku Klux Klan "blood oath," he was involved in a murder plot with other klansmen.
The FBI first asked Moore to infiltrate a klan group called the United Northern and Southern Knights of the KKK in rural north Florida in 2007. At klan gatherings, Moore noted license plate numbers and other identifying information of suspected law enforcement officers who were members.
Moore said he noted connections between the hate group and law enforcement in Florida and Georgia. He said he came across dozens of police officers, prison guards, sheriff deputies and other law enforcement officers who were involved with the klan and outlaw motorcycle clubs.
While operating inside this first klan group, Moore alerted the feds to a plot to murder a Hispanic truck driver. Then, he says, he pointed the FBI toward a deputy with the Alachua County Sheriff's Office, Wayne Kerschner, who was a member of the same group.
During Moore's years in the United Northern and Southern Knights, the FBI also identified a member of the klan cell working for the Fruitland Park, Fla., police department. Moore said he'd provided identifying information that was useful in that case.
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His years as an informant occurred during a critical time for the nation's domestic terrorism efforts. In 2006, the FBI had circulated an intelligence assessment about the klan and other groups trying to infiltrate law enforcement ranks.
"White supremacist groups have historically engaged in strategic efforts to infiltrate and recruit from law enforcement," the FBI wrote. The assessment said some in law enforcement were volunteering "professional resources to white supremacist causes with which they sympathize."
The FBI did not answer a series of questions sent by the AP about Moore's work as a confidential informant.
Creating a character
Moore was not a klansman before working for the FBI, he said. He said he joined because the government approached him, and asked for his help. As a veteran and Army-trained sniper, he said he felt that if his country asked him to protect the public from domestic terrorists, he had a duty to do so. He saw himself, he said, as a safety net between the violent extremists and the public.
He said he never adopted their racist ideology. To keep a lifeline to his true character, Moore claims to have never used racial slurs while in character — even as his klan brethren tossed them around casually. On FBI recordings reviewed by the AP, he was never heard using racial slurs like his former klan brothers.
But he also acknowledges that successful undercover work required him to change into a wholly different person so that he could convince his klan brothers that he was one of them.
"I laid out a character that had been overseas. That had received medals in combat. That was proven. That had special operations experience — more experience than I had. But someone that they would feel confident would be a useful asset to the organization at a much higher level," Moore said.
It worked, and Moore was given high-level access and trust.
"If you're not credible, if you're not engaged on all levels, you don't get to go home to your family. So you have to jump all in in order to keep you and your family safe," he said.
It also required Moore to lie — to his wife, to her parents, to everyone. Nobody could know what he was doing. But eventually, Moore's wife became suspicious of his activities, and he cracked. He told her and her parents what he was doing.
"You can't tell them. And they continue to probe because they want to know what's going on in your life. So there's this concern that you have to lie to your own family and I didn't want to be lying to my family," he said.
Moore was also being treated for bipolar disorder and severe anxiety, which he'd gotten under control with medications. But given his struggles with mental illness, his wife didn't immediately believe him. He'd eventually take her with him to a few klan gatherings, a decision he regrets because it put her at risk.
When the FBI agents with whom he worked discovered that his wife knew, they ended the relationship with the agency, and Moore sought additional mental and physical health treatment through the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Still, after some time away, the FBI would come back to him and recruit him for his second mission.
The Grand Knight Hawk
In 2013, an FBI agent who'd worked with Moore during his first stint as an informant recruited him again. This time he was asked to infiltrate the Florida chapter of a national group called the Traditionalist American Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.
Within a year of becoming "naturalized," he'd become a Grand Knight Hawk of the "klavern" based in rural north central Florida. He was in charge of security and internal communications, and because of his military background, he was the go-to guy for violence.
It was at a cross-burning ceremony in December 2014 that Charles Newcomb, the "Exalted Cyclops" of the chapter, pulled him aside to discuss a scheme to kill a Black man. Warren Williams was a former inmate who'd gotten into a fight with one of their klan brothers, a correctional officer named Thomas Driver. Driver, corrections Sgt. David Moran and Newcomb wanted Williams dead.
Moore alerted the FBI and was approved to make secret recordings over the next few months. By this time, he'd become enmeshed in Newcomb's life: They drank together, hung out at barbecues, and talked about life's problems. This allowed Moore to get close enough to record the three current and former Florida correctional officers as they planned Williams' murder. He captured discussions of the murder plot that would lead to criminal convictions for the three klansmen.
"And this wasn't the only person that they wanted to target," said Moore. "There were other people in the community that they wanted to target. But this was the one that we could build a case on."
Over his decade inside, Moore said his list of other law enforcement officers tied to the klan grew. The links, he said, were commonplace in Florida and Georgia, and easier to identify once he was inside.
"I was on track to uncover more activity in law enforcement, but the immediate threat to the public with the murder plot was a priority," Moore said. "And I was only one person. There was only so much I could do."
Moore said the three current and former prison guards implicated in the murder plot case operated among a group of other officer-klan members at the Reception and Medical Center in Lake Butler, Florida, a prison where new inmates are processed and given health checks. He said the officers he knew were actively recruiting at the prison.
Florida's Department of Corrections said that's not true.
"Every day more than 18,000 correctional officers throughout the state work as public servants, committed to the safety of Florida's communities. They should not be defamed by the isolated actions of three individuals who committed abhorrent and illegal acts several years prior," the department said in an emailed statement.
Spokeswoman Michelle Glady has told the AP the agency found no evidence of a wider membership by extremist white supremacist groups, or a systemic problem. She said every allegation of wrongdoing is investigated by the department's inspector general.
"That statement by the state is not accurate based on the facts," said Moore, who asserts he saw evidence of a more pervasive problem than the state is publicly acknowledging. He said he gave the FBI information about other active white supremacists who were working as state prison guards and at other law enforcement agencies. He said he also provided information about klansmen applying to be state prison guards.
After testifying in the murder conspiracy case against the klansmen he'd spent years working with, Moore's work with the FBI ended. He'd been publicly identified, and in 2018 he began life under a new name.
By then the work had taken an enormous toll on his mental and physical health. He says the character of Joe Moore, Grand Knight Hawk of the KKK, had to develop a kinship and almost familial relations with those he was investigating in order to make it out alive.
But he lost close friends, he said, who were angry that he had claimed fraudulent military honors as part of his alter ego.
Today Moore is worried that the men he helped put into prison know where he is and are looking for revenge. They're all due out in a few years.
Moore has installed motion-detecting surveillance cameras outside the home that allow him to monitor any activity, and carries a gun everywhere he goes.
He said, at this point, he believes coming out of the shadows and publicly discussing his story is the best way to protect himself and his family.
"We have had to change our names. We have tried to move, we have had our address placed in confidentiality. However, there are people that have investigative capacities that have tracked us, they've uncovered our names," Moore said. In recent months, people connected to the klan have appeared at his house, he said. Moore alerted the FBI and filed a report with the local sheriff's office.
Moore also does not want his work, and those of other confidential informants who put their lives on the line to help expose domestic extremists, to have been in vain.
He said he wants Florida's corrections and law enforcement leaders to conduct systemwide investigations to root out white supremacists and other violent extremists.
"If you want to know why people don't trust the police, it's because they have a relative or friend that they witness being targeted by an extremist who happens to have a badge and a gun. And I know as a fact that this has occurred. I stopped a murder plot of law enforcement officers," said Moore.
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This is the area that I live in and it's not surprising at all.
that white supremacist trash should've been left in the landfill 100 years ago. how that unamerican scum is allowed to wander around freely is beyond me. it may be time to do a quick roll call of the conservative xtians, seems like a few may be MIA...
Remember there is no racism in 21st Century America./s
Oh come on - you know that this stuff is all fake news....
any rwnj that makes that claim likely has a pillowcase with cutout eye holes in the glove box.
A lot of right wing conservatives like to pretend that it's such a small number of white supremacists among them that it shouldn't even be mentioned, or they like to deflect and distract by pointing out that it was Southern conservative Democrats who created the KKK over 150 years ago. But the reality is they are today a large part of white Southern conservative culture.
"The FBI wanted me to gather as much information about these individuals and confirm their identities," Moore said of law enforcement officers who were active members of or working with the klan. "From where I sat, with the intelligence laid out, I can tell you that none of these agencies have any control over any of it. It is more prevalent and consequential than any of them are willing to admit."
It certainly is.
it wouldn't surprise me if the majority of all LE in the deep south was klan affiliated along with a lot of LE across america. my nephew quit the biz after 2 years in kentucky because the racism in the dept repulsed him.
Oh, I believe you are on to something there. I live in a town of about 30K and we only have white cops. Of course the town itself is about 97% white. My husband has long hair and a beard and looks like a Spaniard (his friends actually call him that). He gets profiled fairly regularly in our town. I think it's only a matter of time that I get a phone call to come bail him out...or check him out of the hospital
Welcome to the club, Trout and Mr. Giggles.
TG, I would ask why you live in a place where there is dis-ease, but I already know the answer. I have family in Mississippi their whole lives. Mississippi has the most black Americans concentration of any state and it is a 'red-state' changing glacially slow.
We got stationed here after being in Lubbock TX for 6.5 years. My children grew up here, Mr G retired here, and I have good job. We moved to this little town for the schools and I'm glad we did. My daughter is still here and my son is planning on putting in orders to come back here.
I love the state. I'm an outdoorsy person and there is a lot of beauty to appreciate here. Just watch who you interact with.
It is the paradox. We really want to love these people, despite their chonic diseased racist state, but as we can see it is to no avail. The moment some conservatives are given a break from tamping down their sickness -they inhale and start to rise with schizophrenic "take-over" tendencies. We can live with them: on the other hand they have to rule over us to be happy!
I have learned to not talk politics with people. When they start I shut up or walk away. A lot of times it just delves into ranting and raving...
Amazing isn't it. With the demographics one would think change would happen.
A get out the vote seems to be needed.
I don't know. The thing is Mississippi has been politically "bright red" for as long as I can remember. Yet, the highest percentage of blacks live there. They are not dumb people, and people of color are making a difference there. They are a valuable "ingredient" to the state. But, if blacks make the essential vote number counts go up in other elections, one has to wonder why lying politicians can control the voting number in the highest black density state of blacks. Keeping the state red.
Things that make me go hmmmm.
He is one brave man
The understatement of the year, Trout.
Morning Trout..
That is exactly what I thought...I certainly could not do anything like that and for that long....Just as well there are people in this world that can and do...
Interestingly enough, we all have our talents and skill-sets that sometimes land us in some scurrilous and raw places. We surprise ourselves. There are surely agents working in this country today. More. Power. To. The. Brave. Men. and. Women. Who. Make. Life. Liveable. For. Us.
This should send chill's up everybody's spines.
It should, but will it is the real question.
Those who harbor many similar prejudices but would never openly admit they align ideologically with the white conservative Christian KKK will of course act as if these openly white supremacist folk are either super small in number or have little to no effect on their fellow white conservative Christians that they live and vote side by side with. They have to do this because, while they don't want to be openly associated with them, they also don't want to give up their voting support or prevent white supremacists general intention of conserving what they perceive as their white conservative Christian culture alive and in power.
Exactly
without the white supremacists and the bible thumpers there wouldn't be much left of the GOP.
Yes! Extremists are a cancerous disease. Why are they allowed to run loose in society? WHY?!!!!! We can't yell fire in theaters, but the first amendment permits diseased racists to enter the marketplace of ideas, set up a stand, and talk about killing people and instigating their deaths in large groups?! That is Incoherent.
That is bad why?
It has finally come full circle with me. I am ASHAMED of White Evangelical Christians. Years ago, I narrowed my watching of 'certain televangelist' for cause, however, I have a dear family member who is growing in faith and enjoys ingratiating herself to CBN (Christian Broadcast Network). Starting today, I will 'turn' on CBN and talk negatively about the 'usual suspects' who are not repentant of the harm they do people in general and people of color specifically - through commission or omission.
This was an editorial in the ORLANDO FL newspaper last month.
Must we even say this? Florida should not have white supremacists guarding prisoners |
I think I read an article on this way back when the 3 guys were going to court. It was chilling then.
Yes, it was EG.
The white supremacist group that is in our area is the ''League of the South''.
Interesting read about them.
Morning Kavika...
Damn, where is the virus when you need it most...
Pity it does not wipe them out...
Totally agree, shona.
give it time, the anti-vaxers are cut from the same bed sheets as the trash that wear them.
Florida has 68 ''hate groups''...
normally I would suggest an open trench in the desert, but the everglades and it's creatures could be a much better alternative.
Why?? We have all these so-called, "patriots" who want to force innocent regular folks into third-world status (while paying taxes like everybody else) and yet let diseased 'wolves' run loose talking like fools in the sunlight and doing even worse in the dark? This is bull patty. Straight and simple: Hate groups should be a crime against humanity. It surely is a DISORDER!
So he uncovers an active murder plot involving three corrections officers, can see and identify more people and the state of Florida says hold up. Our officers are not racist...
Talk about burying their heads in the sand.
That is really shocking, Ender.
Wow, what a disturbing story. I knew that there was Klan in the panhandle, but I didn't think it went that far down south in Florida. It is terrifying that cops were involved. Not as shocking about prison guards. I think that many of them are a bit defective due to the whole process of incarceration.
Not only the panhandle but most of north-central FL. The ''League of the South'' is throughout north central FL, one of number of them and they have a ''branch'' in Ocala.
those are the racists that are way too ignorant to be cops...
Can anybody share why it is okay to give diseased racists of any stripe, group, or cause 'shelter' or even employment. STAMP THIS OUT NOW! Just how dedicated to racists is this country? Your children would appreciate your active participation in ending racism in the U.S.A and taking its pall and stigma off this nation.
If you won't do it for yourselves; do it for the future of your children. Put down diseased racists once and for all!