disbanded, but members consented to that undercover cop's plea for
one last shooting practice - which turned out to be a setup for the
arrest.
ATD investigative records obtained by the Weekly chronicle the
unit's infiltration by that officer, the LAPD's Doug Stice, into the
Southern California Marksman's Association (SCMA), a group formed by
Yee and others. The records show how the cops portrayed the SCMA as
a racist militia, bent on killing illegal Mexican immigrants and
"hostages," despite the fact that the SCMA was multiracial - Yee and
another plaintiff are Asian; a third member's wife is Mexican.
Stice's report, about what the plaintiffs say was the first meeting
he attended, in January 1996, calls the group the "Orange County
Militia." In subsequent reports, Stice alternates that name with the
"Orange County Corps," an actual organization - but not the one he
was attending. Glenn and Christine Yee and their SCMA associates had
split from the corps in mid-1995, before Stice entered their lives
as "Andrew Nelson." They left because the corps was too "political,"
according to the lawsuit and Weekly interviews. (One of those
arrested, Timothy Swanson, a childhood friend of Glenn Yee, says he
never belonged to the SCMA.)
According to the Orange County Corps' founder, National Rifle
Association activist T.J. Johnston, the organization was intended
for community protection in the event of riots or natural disasters.
Johnston told the Weekly that he and Dave Ralph, an LAPD officer who
later joined the SCMA, met with Congressman Ed Royce to discuss the
organization. One of Stice's reports terms the Orange County Corps'
founding meeting at Cal State Fullerton a "militia callout."
Stice's reports reflect nothing of the SCMA's survivalist focus.
Instead, Stice reports attending "militia training" and drills. In
interviews over the past year, Swanson, the Yees and other
plaintiffs insisted that Stice fabricated, twisted and outright lied
about what went on inside the group. Prosecutors who filed 13 felony
charges against SCMA member and plaintiff Alvin Ung in San
Bernardino County, a case that is only now going to trial, alleged a
plan to kill immigrants, but have introduced no evidence besides
Stice's report.
Use of the word militia, which acquired considerable punch after the
April 1995 bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building, probably
helped the ATD persuade the Police Commission and then-Police Chief
Willie Williams to give the required permission to launch and
continue the investigation. In an interview for an earlier story,
then-Police Commission president Raymond Fisher told the Weekly that
he was familiar with the operation and that it was justified.
The dire characterization of the militia threat, in turn, helped
persuade the same police commissioners and the City Council to
decide in 1996 to substantially loosen the guidelines governing the
activities of the ATD. Even so, those guidelines require a
reasonable suspicion that a group be planning criminal activity
before officers may investigate. The lawsuits contend that, when it
came to the SCMA, the ATD had no basis for such an investigation.
After it arrested the men, the ATD said its investigation was the
first under the loosened guidelines and couldn't have been conducted
under the old rules.
The new guidelines continue a requirement that the Police Commission
monitor the ATD. A recently released commission audit of the u