"...The CWP, in particular, accused the Justice Department and the FBI of refusing the case in order to avoid investigating involvement of government actors, including federal law enforcement officers."
...The GJF alleged that because various agents were named as defendants in their civil suit, this called into question the FBI’s ability to be impartial in its investigation. The Justice Fund’s allegations against the FBI included:
...Prior knowledge of likely violence on Nov. 3, 1979, that was not communicated to local
authorities;
...Cover up of that knowledge after the shootings;
...Andrew Pelczar, chief supervisory agent in the FBI’s Greensboro office, denied to the press that the FBI had investigated the WVO prior to Nov. 3, 1979. However, internal reports and correspondence later obtained through discovery in the civil trial demonstrated an investigation on the WVO was in fact ordered on Oct. 23, 1979.94
...FBI and ATF records reveal that the ATF communicated to the FBI information about on-going investigations of possible weapons violations by Wood and other WinstonSalem Nazis, yet neither the ATF nor the FBI shared this information with local law enforcement.
...prior to Nov. 3, Klansman Joe Grady told FBI special agents Alznauer and Schatzman of likely “bloodshed” should WVO and Klan confront each other again because of heightened tensions at China Grove. The agents didn’t fill out a report, but told their supervisor, Andrew Pelzcar. Pelczar did not communicate this information further.
...On Nov. 2, 1979, Mordechai Levey of the Jewish Defense League reportedly received information that prominent North Carolina Nazi Harold Covington and his men were training with weapons and planning to come “attack and possibly kill” anti-Klan marchers on Nov. 3, 1979.
...The Greensboro Justice Fund’s request for a special prosecutor was based on the 1978 Ethics in
Government Act, which authorized special prosecutors to investigate “wrongdoing by high level
government officials.”
...No government or police official was indicted.
...Koenig had proven a critical witness for the defense in the state trial, where he had surprised
prosecutors by testifying that his analysis suggested that shots 3, 4 and 5 had come from areas
occupied by demonstrators. However, when Koenig took the stand in the federal criminal trial, he
reverted back to his original conclusion, which was that those shots had come from the front of the caravan.
...Another key source of evidence of the previously unresolved shots 3, 4 and 5 was the plea bargain of Mark Sherer, the Klansman who fired the first shot. Sherer admitted in his statement that the Klan also fired shots 3 and 4. Roy Toney told the federal Grand Jury that he fired shot number 5 when struggling with Jim Waller over the shot gun.
...One juror commented that their decision was based on the fact that they felt the demonstrators made the first aggressive move by hitting the cars. One juror commented that if demonstrators had not hit the cars, the jurors believed the cars would not have stopped. In addition, jurors believed that the exchange of gunfire was equal and that the prosecution’s evidence of racial motivation rather than anticommunism was unconvincing."
http://www.greensborotrc.org/post1979_justice.pdf
