Alleged Racist Leader Is Refused Bail

Bruce Carroll Pierce, the reputed leader of a militant racist group who is wanted for questioning in the slaying of Denver talk-show host Alan Berg, was ordered held without bond on four federal warrants Wednesday, a day after his arrest in northwest Georgia.

Pierce, 30, from Metaline Falls, Wash., was arrested without resistance Tuesday night by FBI and Georgia Bureau of Investigation agents in Rossville, south of Chattanooga, Tenn., and was brought to Atlanta for arraignment.

John Burke, of the FBI’s Atlanta office, showed reporters three tables covered with weapons and ammunition seized from the van that Pierce was driving.

Authorities said that Pierce, alleged leader of the white supremacist group called The Order, has been a fugitive since April, 1984, when he vanished after appearing in federal court in Spokane, Wash., to face a counterfeiting charge.

U.S. Magistrate William Harper, presiding at Pierce’s initial hearing Wednesday, noted that, in addition to the counterfeiting charge, he had been arrested for robbery and conspiracy in California in February, robbery and extortion in Washington state in December and a firearms violation in Montana in September.