Winnipeg murder victim turns out to be ex-head of Manitoba KKK
STEWART BELL
police
When James Edsel Tucker was fatally stabbed at a Winnipeg apartment early Thursday, it was the end of a dark era in Manitoba history, one the 45-year-old had apparently tried to distance himself from by changing his name.
Police confirmed that Tucker was previously known as William James Harcus, whom an expert on racist groups said was the former head of the Manitoba Ku Klux Klan and a defendant in a high profile Winnipeg hate crimes trial.
Two men have been charged with second-degree murder but there has been no sign the killing was related to Harcus’ secret past as the leader of the Manitoba Klan, which claimed Canada was the “land of the white race.”
The victim’s identity was confirmed by Helmut-Harry Loewen, a retired University of Winnipeg professor. The Anti-Racist Canada blog also reported the murder victim had once been the Grand Dragon of the KKK in Manitoba.
A sociologist who has long studied hate groups, Loewen said Harcus had changed his name after he and two others went on trial for hate crimes in 1992. Harcus, then 21, was charged with distributing pamphlets denigrating blacks.
The prosecution collapsed, however, after a police officer gave contradictory evidence, at first testifying that she had not recorded her meetings with the accused but then saying she had. Charges against all three were stayed.
But Loewen, who was familiar with Harcus through his work as chair of the Manitoba Coalition Against Racism and Apartheid, filed a Human Rights Tribunal complaint against Harcus and the Manitoba Knights of the KKK.
In the early 90s, recruitment posters had appeared in Winnipeg showing a burning cross and a Klansman on horseback. “Join or support your local Klan,” they read. The Klan also set up a phone line where callers could receive recorded messages.
“It is obligatory upon the negro race and upon all other colored races in Canada to recognize that they are living in the land of the white race by courtesy of the white race and the white race cannot and will not be expected to surrender to any other race,” one message said.
The hate line targeted First Nations people, Jews, blacks, non-white immigration and homosexuals. Loewen’s complaint alleged the messages violated the Canadian Human Rights Act. Neither Marcus nor the KKK challenged the complaint.
The tribunal shut down the hate line, ruling in December 1992 that it was “likely to expose a number of groups and several individuals, identifiable on the basis of race, national or ethnic origin, color, religion and sexual orientation, to hatred or contempt.”
Harcus later became Tucker and tried to make it as a bluegrass musician. He moved to Vancouver “but appears to have lived for most of the intervening years in Winnipeg,” said Loewen. “Tucker/Harcus ran into my friend … a few weeks ago, asked him for a job and said he’d been trying to get his life in order.”
At 3:05 a.m. on June 23, paramedics responding to a call found Tucker suffering from upper body stab wounds. He died at the hospital. Martin Archie Flett, 22, and Joshua Evans, 24, have been charged with second-degree murder, robbery, kidnapping, sexual assault and other offences. Both are in custody.
“The investigation has revealed that the pair attended to the 400 block of Furby Street to purchase drugs when they first encountered a 37-year-old male resident. The suspects were armed and for a period of time, the 37-year-old victim was seriously assaulted,” Winnipeg police said Sunday.
“Sometime later, the victim was forced into his suite when the suspects encountered victim James Tucker. A confrontation erupted resulting in Tucker being stabbed. The suspects fled and police were notified,” the police statement said.
A former leader of the Toronto-based Canadian KKK, Wolfgang Droege, met a similar fate in 2005 when he was gunned down in his apartment during a drug deal gone bad. While the Klan had a following in Canada in the 80s and 90s, it has since faded.
“Right-wing extremist circles appear to be fragmented and primarily pose a threat to public order and not to national security,” according to the most recent annual report of the Canadian Security Intelligence Service.
