BY JIM ROGERS
FAYETTEVILLE, North Carolina- In the early morning hours of December 7, Michael James, 36, and Jackie Burden, 27 - both Black - were gunned down in a city street here in what appears to be a racist shooting.
Two soldiers of the 82nd Airborne Division of the U.S. Army, stationed at Fort Bragg, North Carolina, have been charged with the execution-style murders. They are both white. According to press reports, a third defendant told police that Pvt. James Burmeister, 20, and Pvt. Malcolm Wright Jr., 21, went downtown "to mess with Blacks and drug dealers."
When police searched Burmeister's room, they allegedly found a Nazi flag, white supremacist literature, and a 9 mm pistol that they say was used for the shooting. According to a fellow soldier, Burmeister had earlier displayed the flag above his bed when he lived in the Ft. Bragg barracks.
The Fayetteville Observer Times and other papers reported that the local NAACP chapter has launched an investigation into possible racist and ultrarightist activity in military bases, particularly at Ft. Bragg. The FBI and local police are using the incident to conduct a sweeping investigation among the armed forces.
During a visit here December 16, most residents interviewed, including several in the military, said they had no doubt the murders were a racist act. The next day the local Friendship Baptist Church hosted a "reconciliation service," just a block from Campbell Terrace, a predominantly Black apartment complex where the killings occurred.