What makes her murder unique is that one of the Klansmen was the FBI’s top informant, Gary Thomas Rowe. Many think that he fired the shot that killed her and the FBI covered it up.
Rowe’s story suggests that informants can actually create the very tragedies they are supposed to prevent and shows how dangerous it is to plant unreliable citizens inside terrorist groups. To protect their cover, they must commit criminal acts – and out government becomes their accomplices.
The use of informant’s remains a standard police practice today and is widely used across the world in the fight against organized crime and terrorism.
As we honor Mrs. Liuzzo’s life, we should also re-examine the role of informants – they often create more problems than they are worth.
Gary May specializes in American political, diplomatic, and social history since 1945 and teaches the subject at The University of Delaware.
He is the author of The Informant: The FBI, the Ku Klux Klan and the Murder of Viola Liuzzo (2005)
http://www.history.udel.edu/garymay/fac-bio/gary-may/
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