A Nebraska State Patrol trooper who joined a white supremacist group with links to the Ku Klux Klan should not be allowed to keep his job, according to state Attorney General Jon Bruning.

Bruning’s office and the State Patrol administration is contesting a New York City arbitrator’s decision that the Omaha area trooper, Robert Henderson,  should be reinstated.

Henderson was fired last spring after the patrol discovered he had joined a white supremacist group called the Knights Party, or Christian Concepts, and had posted several messages on the group’s Web site identifying himself as the “White Knight of Ne.”

Henderson did not deny being a member and, in fact, apologized for joining the Web site, according to a York attorney representing him as a union member.

Henderson joined the Knights Party in fall 2005 to vent his feelings after his wife left him for a Hispanic man in 2003, according to the arbitrator’s decision.

A central question in the issue is whether the patrol can fire someone simply because he or she is a member of a particular organization or whether there must be some specific job-related behavior.

Henderson’s attorney argued mere membership in a group is not enough reason to fire someone.

But Bruning says it is enough to disqualify someone from a law enforcement job. Nebraska doesn’t give badges to anyone tied to the KKK, he said.

A trooper who is a member of a group like the Ku Klux Klan impairs the operation and effectiveness of the patrol, he said during a Friday news conference.

“The First Amendment of the Constitution allows you to join disgusting groups … to have disgusting ideas, ideas that are repugnant to most of us. But it doesn’t allow you to be appointed by the state of Nebraska as a state trooper,” Bruning said.

However, the arbitrator for the case concluded the state violated the 18-year veteran trooper’s First Amendment right to free association.

Henderson was not fired because of his actions on the job, but because of a group he joined, Paul J. Caffera wrote.

“The department was not able to point to a single instance on the job — or for that matter at any time, including his off-duty hours — where the grievant’s actions exhibited any hatred, anger, disgust or discrimination towards any minority group,” the arbitrator wrote in a recent decision.

The patrol discharged Henderson “because of his beliefs and because he sought out others who shared his beliefs” and, thus, violated his First Amendment rights, Caffera said.

Col. Bryan Tuma, the patrol’s superintendent, said “the patrol had no concerns whatsoever that he was engaged in any profiling type or any type of biased stops against minorities” before Henderson’s membership in the organization was revealed.

“There was no cause for alarm.”

The nexus in this case is membership in a white supremacist organization, Tuma said.

“You have to look at the historical overview of white supremacist organizations, whose past conduct was criminal and who hold views that are contrary to goals of our agency and the state of Nebraska,” he said.

“Our policy requires that you conduct yourself, both on and off duty, in a fashion so as not to bring the patrol into disrespect.”

Membership in a group like this would “certainly cause one to think it would taint their judgement, their objectivity,” he said.

Henderson was fired after a five - month investigation that began with a tip from the Kansas Bureau of Investigation, which was monitoring the Knights Party Web site.

The Nebraska Attorney General’s office filed an appeal in Lancaster County District Court Friday, contending the trooper’s reinstatement should not be allowed to stand.

State Sen. Ernie Chambers of Omaha also plans to formally ask the Nebraska Crime Commission to      revoke Henderson’s law enforcement certification.

“To have an individual who has associated himself with an organization having a history of lynching, bombings, burnings, racial violence, hatred — not only against black people but Jews and other groups that they detest and think have no right to be on the face of the earth —  is totally unacceptable.”

Chambers pointed to evidence that he said showed Henderson “stopped a black news anchor in Omaha as a means of getting even for the fact that his wife ran off with a Latino person, and it generated this general hatred toward non-white people.”

That behavior shows “he is a person lacking in the temperament, the disposition  and judgment of a person enforcing the law” and who has the “discretionary power to take life,” Chambers said.

An internal investigation of the incident — in which Henderson pulled over the man because he had been living in the state for more than 30 days but had not obtained a Nebraska license plate — determined Henderson had not engaged in any misconduct.

Henderson’s attorney, Vincent Valentino, said his client is not racist, did not post racist messages and had no history of racist behavior at his job.

“Bob regrets his decision to join their Web site and be a member and post some messages on it that were not racist,” Valentino said.

In fact, the Web site doesn’t allow racist postings, he said.

“State employees have the right to  think and speak privately and to associate himself as others,” he said.

Henderson, who resigned from the Knight’s party before he was fired from the patrol, was not an active member of any white supremacist group, Valentino said.

“He was not a recruiter. He was not handing out leaflets. He wasn’t wearing a white sheet and a hood.

“The bottom line is he made a mistake in his private conduct. It is not sufficient to terminate him.”

Reach Nancy Hicks at 473-7250 or nhicks@journalstar.com.

Editor's note: The original version of this story and its reader comments is here.