One of the Ohio State Highway Patrol troopers involved in a KKK prank said he is not a racist, but admitted he was "counseled previously for racial gestures or slurs." Trooper Eric E. Wlodarsky admitted he snapped a photo of Trooper Craig T. Franklin, who was wearing KKK-like garb, while both were on duty at the Sandusky post Jan. 20 -- just one day before Martin Luther King Day. Wlodarsky then forwarded the photo, which he took with a cell phone camera, to Sgt. Jason P. Demuth. Wlodarsky and Franklin were both recommended for termination by Henry Guzman, the state's director of public safety, but remain on the job because of a collective bargaining agreement. Franklin received a five-day unpaid suspension and was ordered to seek diversity awareness training. Demuth was suspended for one day. Wlodarsky estimated the pay cut will cost him about $12,000 a year. Wlodarsky's counseling stemmed from an administrative investigation conducted by the patrol last summer after another trooper made several allegations about the patrol.

The trooper claimed that in November 2006 Wlodarsky failed to respond for back-up on a traffic stop of a car carrying a group of black males -- and instead went to deliver Cleveland Browns tickets to an off-duty trooper. The trooper said that when he phoned Wlodarsky to ask why he did not respond, Wlodarsky told him: "We can't send an officer to back up another every time we stop a carload of niggers. What would the motoring public think?" Wlodarsky made a similar comment to a dispatcher, but did not use the n-word, the dispatcher said. During an administrative investigation in July 2007, Wlodarsky admitted making the comment to a dispatcher, but said he did not use the n-word. "He said used the word 'blacks' and is very conscious to use not to use the other word, although he does say it. [MORE]