Ohio Troopers Canned for KKK Prank

May 6, 2008— -- It was just a joke, they said, a prank modeled on a black comedian's skit the day before a black civil rights icon's holiday.

But the two officers from the Ohio State Highway Patrol involved in a camera-phone photo shoot in which one posed with a crude KKK-costume over his uniform while the other snapped away are out of work after a governor-ordered investigation.

The highway patrol announced Monday night that Craig Franklin and Eric Wlodarsky, who appeared in Columbus last weekend at hearings in front of superior officers, have been fired for the photo. It features Franklin holding a piece of paper with holes punched out for eyes in front of his face like a mask, and wearing a makeshift robe and paper cone on his head.

The photo was taken on Jan. 20, the day before Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

The reference is apparent to anyone familiar with the history of the Ku Klux Klan in the United States — and the white robes and pointy hoods Klansmen ceremoniously wear.

"There was just cause for discipline and the termination was carried through," patrol spokesman Anthony Bradshaw said.

The pair had already been disciplined for the photo, which arrived at the Sandusky State Patrol headquarters with an unsigned letter that read, "Sergeant Wlodarsky on duty at the Sandusky Post on January 20, 2008. What a way to represent the Ohio State Highway Patrol!"

In late March, Franklin, the costumed trooper and a 12-year veteran of the state patrol, was suspended without pay for five days. Wlodarsky, the cameraman, was demoted from sergeant to trooper and transferred out of the Sandusky post, where none of the 13 troopers assigned are black. Both of the troopers were required to take part in diversity awareness training. A third trooper who received the photo but did not report it to superiors — instead forwarding it to a subordinate — was suspended for a day.

Ohio Gov. Ted Strickland, unsatisfied by the punishments, met in late April with the state's public safety director and the head of the state patrol to discuss the internal investigation. "This morning, Strickland determined that the sanctions which had been imposed by the Patrol were inadequate," according to an April 22 release form the governor's office, "and he asked … to immediately begin the proceedings to terminate the employment of the trooper and the sergeant involved."