Leader of White Aryan Group Being Sued in Beating Death

Tom Metzger of Fallbrook, head of the White Aryan Resistance, was sued Friday in Portland, Ore., federal court by the uncle of an Ethiopian who was beaten to death last year by skinheads, young Neo-Nazis who favor shaved heads, steel-toed boots and military-style clothing.

The suit, filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, accuses Metzger, 50, and his son, John, 20, of encouraging and inciting the skinheads, who “conspired to inflict serious bodily harm” on Mulugeta Seraw, 28, who was beaten to death last Nov. 9 in front of his Portland apartment.

Also named as a defendant is Metzger’s White Aryan Resistance, a white power organization reported to have a following of more than 2,000. The suit seeks unspecified “compensatory and punitive damages.”

It is similar to a lawsuit pressed by the law center three years ago against the Ku Klux Klan, in which a jury returned a $7-million verdict that crushed an entire arm of the klan financially.

Metzger did not return messages left on his telephone answering machine, which carries one of his exhortations to Aryans, encouraging them to resist the “alien regime in Washington,” and which, he goes on to say, is showing “its Jewish-style hand.” The SPLC says that Metzger and his group are bent on violence to Jews and nonwhites.

The SPLC and the ADL are representing Engedaw Berhanu, the uncle and the executor of Seraw’s estate. Two skinheads, Kenneth Mieske and Kyle Brewster, have pleaded guilty to criminal charges in Seraw’s death. Both are named as defendants in the civil lawsuit.

Mieske received a life sentence, which carries a mandatory imprisonment of 20 years. Brewster received a 20-year sentence, with a minimum of 10 years of imprisonment.

A third skinhead, Steven Strasser, has been charged with second-degree assault. Strasser, who was not named in the civil suit, is awaiting pending criminal trial.

Metzger, a TV repairman in this community, northeast of Oceanside in San Diego County, is founder of the White Aryan Resistance. He also hosts “Race and Reason,” a TV interview program broadcast to cable subscribers in at least a dozen states.

The lawsuit charges that agents of Tom and John Metzger, who heads the Aryan Youth Movement, moved into a skinhead apartment in Portland and encouraged the skinheads to commit violent acts against blacks and others to promote white supremacy.