[Labyrinthos]

I know nothing about WACO. I do know, however, that back in the late 1990's I defended the owner of a large apartment complex (250 units) against a Federal civil rights lawsuit. The Feds accused the owner and its management company of discriminating against blacks. At the outset of the case, the Feds offered to settle for basically a public acknowledgment and apology and some kind of sensitivity training. My client refused the offer and unequivically denied all of the allegations even after the Feds produced secret audio recordings of the defendants and sworn statements from several teams of investigators, who conducted an undercover investigation over a 12 month period. What the Feds did was send in teams of investigators posing as potential tenants on nine seperate occassions over the 12 month period. Eight of the nine times, management either told the black investigators (which were usually posing as a husband and wife or as a upper middle class single person) there were no apartments available or quoted the black investigators a monthly rent that was two to three times higher than the going rate. And while management encouraged the black investigators to fill out an application just in case something became available, the black applications were color coded with a little black triangle in one of the corners. An hour later, white investigators would show up to rent an apartment and suddenly there were several units immediately available at a more modest rate. Even with this evidence, my client denied the charges and if there was a a problem, then it was the fault of the management company that my client had hired to run the complex. Then the Feds produced a memo from my client indicating that available aprtments should be repainted with "white or other light colors because the dark colors have given us problems in the past and most of our tenants prefer white and near white." Even then, my client denied the charges and claimed the Feds were out to get him, but ended up paying $250,000 to settle the case.

[bird4four4]

aprtments should be repainted with "white or other light colors because the dark colors have given us problems in the past and most of our tenants prefer white and near white."

So are the FEDs suggesting that the color chosen to paint these apartments was a racist hate crime? Must have rooms painted yellow red brown and peach, in the ratio to the skin color of the populace. ;^)

[Hat-Trick]

Sorry your client lied to you. Probably wasn't the first time. Hope you got paid. Nobody should have to go through that kind of mess pro-bono.

The feds may have the goods on CB. I hope it doesn't turn out to be payback from the federal friends of the Lavendar Mafia for CB's firing of GLBT employees back in the early 90's.

I just have a very healthy and sometimes unnatural mistrust of all things federal, state, and local government.

[wtc911]

Color coding applications has been going on for decades. A little red chack in any corner does it.

My oldest is in grad school in liberal SoCal. He tells stories of outright racism (grafitti on dorm room doors variety) that he has seen personally. Racism continues strong in America.