A2 ez su THE WASHINGTON POST.THURSDAy, MARCH 5 , 2020
HAppenIng TodAyFor the latest updates all day, visit washingtonpost.com.All day | Vice president pence and his wife, Karen pence, travel to
onalaska, Wis., to participate in a “Women for tr ump” event. later, the
couple attend a trump campaign rally in st. paul, minn. For
developments, visit washingtonpost.com/politics.
8:30 a.m. | The Labor department issues jobless claims for the week
ended Feb. 29, which are expected to come in at 215,000, down from
219 ,000 the previous week. Visit washingtonpost.com/business for
details.
1:30 p.m. | nAsA is expected to unveil the name of its new mars rover.
For developments, visit washingtonpost.com/national.
2 p.m. | House speaker nancy pelosi (d-Calif.) speaks at a
georgetown university event celebrating the impact of the 19th
amendment. Visit washingtonpost.com/local for details.
6:30 p.m. | president Trump participates in a live Fox news town hall.
For developments, visit washingtonpost.com/politics.
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l A March 3 Metro article about
the shooting death of 13-year-old
Malachi Lukes in the District
misstated the last name of his
mother. She is Melissa Laws, not
Melissa Walls.l A March 3 Health & Science
article about cognitive screening
should have been labeled as a
Navigating Aging column by
Judith Graham.l A Feb. 29 Metro article about
fundraising efforts by Maryland
Gov. Larry Hogan (R) incorrectly
said that Hogan’s longtime
booster Thomas Kelso is
chairman of the Change
Maryland Action Fund super
PAC. Kelso is chairman of the
Change Maryland nonprofit. The
Change Maryland Action Fund
super PAC does not have a chair.the Washington post is committed to
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[email protected].nATIonAL seCUrITy
Pentagon linguist faces
espionage charges
A contract l inguist a ssigned to
a U.S. Special Operations task
force in Iraq was charged with
espionage Wednesday over
allegations that she turned over
the names of human informants
and other classified data to a
Lebanese man with ties t o the
militant group Hezbollah.
The Justice Department said
Mariam Ta ha Thompson, 61,
formerly of Rochester, Minn., was
charged with one count of
conspiracy and one count of
delivering defense information to
aid a foreign government.
Prosecutors a lleged that she
passed the information to a man
in whom she had a romantic
interest.
Thompson appeared i n federal
court in Washington on
Wednesday. The FBI arrested her
Feb. 27 at a U.S. military facility in
Irbil, Iraq, w here she w orked,
court filings said.
Court filings do not elaborate
on Thompson’s a ssignment, b ut
Irbil has b een home to an e lite
U.S. Special Operations
counterterrorism effort.
— S pencer S. HsuoHIoHospital system fined
over fentanyl dosesThe hospital system where an
intensive care doctor w as accused
of ordering excessive doses of the
opioid painkiller fentanyl f or
dozens of patients who died w ill
be fined $400,000 for v iolating
Ohio p harmacy law under a
settlement a nnounced
Wednesday.
The Columbus-area Mount
Carmel Health S ystem also
agreed to pay more than $77,
for the costs of the state Board of
Pharmacy’s investigation
involving Mount Carmel West
hospital, which h as since closed,
and William Husel, the fired
doctor charged with m urder i n
the deaths of 25 patients over
several years.
Husel has pleaded n ot guilty.
He a rgues h e was caring for dying
patients, n ot trying t o kill them.Husel has sued Mount Carmel for
defamation.
Mount Carmel was accused of
violations related t o policies a nd
procedures for dispensing drugs,including instances where
controls on automated
dispensers w ere overridden t o
fulfill Husel’s o rders.
Two pharmacists who werecited for v erifying l arge doses of
fentanyl were fined $2,000 and
$1,000, respectively, u nder their
own settlements with the board.
Mount Carmel previously said
it fired 23 nurses, pharmacists
and managers after its internal
investigation.
— Associated P ressFLorIdAMechanic gets 3 years
for sabotaging jetlinerA veteran airline mechanic was
sentenced Wednesday to three
years in p rison for s abotaging an
American Airlines jetliner with
150 people onboard in a bid to
earn overtime fixing the plane.
In s entencing Abdul-Majeed
Marouf Ahmed Alani, U.S.
District Judge Marcia Cooke said
she found no evidence t o support
allegations that Alani, 60, h ad
links to the Islamic State militant
group or any terrorist
organization.
Alani is a naturalized U.S.
citizen originally from Iraq who
had been an airline mechanic for
30 years.Prosecutors s aid that he has a
brother in Iraq who may be
involved w ith the Islamic State
and that Alani had made
statements wishing Allah would
use “divine powers” t o harm non-
Muslims. There were also Islamic
State videos found on his
cellphone, they said.
But Assistant U.S. Attorney
Randy Hummel said
investigators found “ no linkage”
between Alani and any extremist
groups.
Court documents show the
sabotage i nvolved g luing
Styrofoam inside the nose of a
Boeing 737 at Miami
International A irport so that it
disabled a component p ilots use
to monitor things such as
airspeed, altitude and the pitch of
the plane. Authorities say if the
flight had taken off as planned
July 17 for Nassau, B ahamas, the
sabotage could have caused a
crash.
Instead, t he pilot s aw a n error
message while the a ircraft was on
the runway and returned to the
terminal to have the problem
examined.
— Associated PressdIgesTdon campbell/Herald-palladIum/assocIated press
Beachgoers take advantage of the clear weather Wednesday a t
Silver Beach in St. Joseph, Mich.That outcome has loomed over
concerns about racism in the Mil-
waukee facility, employees said.
Beer sales nationally are already
slipping, and Molson Coors an-
nounced in October that it is clos-
ing its Denver office as part of a
corporate restructuring plan.
Some of those jobs will move to
Milwaukee, but the company will
lose between 400 to 500 jobs.
Ferrill worked as an in-house
electrician in the “powerhouse”
utility area o f the 8 2-acre p lant.
“ His personality made him a
target,” s aid the current employee,
who had known Ferrill for more
than a decade. “He was a soft-spo-
ken guy.”
Ferrill lived in a modest tan
rambler in Milwaukee with his
wife and a beloved Doberman that
he often walked through the
neighborhood. His wife’s Face-
book page — now inaccessible —
showed a typical middle-class life,
with pictures of their grandkids
and a trip to see the m usical “ Ham-
ilton.” But co-workers said he was
struggling at work. He had long
suffered from chronic back pain
that left him frustrated and may
have impacted his ability to work,
according to lawyer Steven C. Gab-
ert, a personal-injury attorney
who represented Ferrill after a car
accident.
Ferrill told Gabert that his ca-
reer at Molson Coors made him
happy, paid him well and allowed
him to support his family — his
wife, two adult children and a
younger daughter — but added
that working as an electrician at
multiple buildings around the
campus was more physically de-
manding than it s eemed.
He was off work for a time on a
workers’ compensation claim and
became convinced that the com-
pany was spying on him and that
his house had been broken into,
colleagues said.
He e xpressed t hat fear t o neigh-
bors as well. According to the As-
sociated Press, he told a neighbor,
Erna Roenspies, that t he company
“spies” w ere c hecking up on him to
make sure he was r eally s ick.
Ferrill’s family issued a state-
ment Friday that said they feel
“terrible sadness and heartache
over the tragic incident” and that
they were “shocked and dismayed
to learn of the apparent involve-
ment o f our family member.”
[email protected]
[email protected]Julie tate in Washington and dan
simmons in milwaukee contributed to
this report.that the manager told employees
to respect each other. “It was the
kind of thing you would expect a
brewery m anager to say.”
Litke, now retired and living in
Minnesota, declined to comment,
saying i t was “not in h is b est inter-
ests” t o speak.
Collins said the company has
“indeed had all-plant meetings
when concerns are raised.”
Electricians earn more than
$32 an hour, according to their
union, which made some workers
afraid to rock the boat for fear of
losing good-paying jobs, Counce
said.
“The culture of that company
was very, very toxic,” Clayborn
said. “If I wasn’t making $30 an
hour, I wouldn’t be working at a
job l ike that.”
State Sen. Lena C. Ta ylor, a
Democrat w ho is running for may-
or of Milwaukee, said she has spo-
ken to employees since the shoot-
ing about what she characterized
as “a racially toxic environment”
at t he p lant.
“Based on what the colleagues
have told me, [Ferrill] had to deal
with a lot,” she said. “So do I be-
lieve it was a contributing factor?
Yes, there’s no question I believe
the racial harassment was a con-
tributing factor. I don’t see how it
would not be.”
Miller and Coors, which an-
nounced the formation of a joint
venture in 2007, have faced accu-
sations of r acism i n the p ast.
In 1984 — when the Milwaukee
plant was still owned by Miller —
William K. Coors, then chairman
and chief executive of Adolph Co-
ors Co., was quoted saying that
black people lack “intellectual ca-
pacity.”
The Los Angeles chapter of the
NAACP called for a boycott, and
more than 500 Southern Califor-
nia liquor stores stopped selling
Coors beer. The company signed
agreements with black and His-
panic groups to hire minorities,
invest in minority-owned busi-
nesses a nd i ncrease the n umber of
minority distributors.
In 1 994, Miller Brewing C ompa-
ny paid $2.7 million to settle a
racial harassment suit brought by
black workers at the company’s
plant in Fulton, N.Y., according to
news reports at the time. The
workers alleged they had been
subjected to harassment that in-
cluded racist graffiti, nooses and
racial slurs broadcast over the
brewery’s public address system.
The company closed the plant
shortly before settling the lawsuit
and l aid off 900 workers.any type of aggression,” Powell
said. But when Powell, who is
black, said he was thinking of ap-
plying to transfer to the brewery,
he said Ferrill had a warning:
“They will hate on you down
there.”
Raylynne Clayborn, 39, a ma-
chinist who worked for the brew-
ery for 13 years until he was fired
for missing work in 2018, said
there was a “panel room” in the
brewery department that served
as the central nervous system for
making beer. He a lleges that w hite
employees hung racist cartoons
there — i ncluding of monkeys and
blackface characters eating w ater-
melon — and they remained there
until the black employees re-
moved them.
“We were immune to it; that
was the norm. We would just take
them down,” h e said.
Molson Coors said it is not
aware of r acist cartoons b eing dis-
played a t the plant.
Some employees recalled racist
acts in other departments of the
brewery, a sprawling plant that
employs 1,400 people. With its
towering red Miller beer sign and
mural deeming it “Home of the
High Life,” the facility is one of
Milwaukee’s most recognizable
places. It is also a tourist attrac-
tion, where people can pay $10 for
tours of the complex, including its
packaging and distribution cen-
ters and famed beer caves, sam-
pling l ibations along the w ay.
Rynale Counce, who worked as
a machine operator from 2015 to
2017, recalled an incident in a
“drivers break room” where many
black employees congregated. On
the r oom’s s ign, s omeone s crawled
the n-word in front of “drivers,”
Counce said, and wrote “n-----s
must die” o n a wall.
“These stories aren’t a secret,”
said Counce, 3 7.
The current employee said he
witnessed a noose duct-taped to
the locker of another black em-
ployee around 2012. He said the
company investigated but did not
figure out who placed the noose on
the locker. Molson Coors did not
comment on that allegation.
E mployees said that the noose
on Ferrill’s l ocker was discussed at
a brewery-wide meeting held in
the “stables” of the brewery, a his-
toric room that once housed the
draft horses but now is a meeting
space. Ken Litke, then t he brewery
manager, led the meeting, em-
ployees said.
“He said, ‘Obviously this isn’t
right. We don’t tolerate this,’ ” the
current employee recalled, addingers w ere subject to racist language
and t aunts based on their religion.
“Everyone knows the environ-
ment we worked in. It’s just a sad
situation that it actually hap-
pened,” said former brewery
worker Jelani Muhammad of the
noose on Ferrill’s l ocker.
Molson Coors said Ferrill was
not w orking the day the noose was
reported.
“Our HR team notified him of
the incident, it was investigated
fully, no camera footage was avail-
able to show who placed it on the
locker,” t he c ompany said in a writ-
ten statement to The Washington
Post. The company said it offered
security and h uman r esources s er-
vices to Ferrill, but did not say
whether he h ad made use of them.
Adam Collins, the company’s
chief communications and corpo-
rate affairs officer, did not directly
address employees’ allegations of
a racist culture at the facility, but
in a statement, he said that the
company investigates “every sin-
gle complaint” of intolerance or
harassment.
“It’s why we have terminated
people for behavior we believe is
unacceptable. It’s why we have
tried to create safe spaces for dis-
cussions on diversity and inclu-
sion in the Milwaukee brewery
and across our network,” Collins
said.
“But there’s no two ways about
it. We have more work to do,”
Collins said. “Fostering an inclu-
sive and welcoming workplace is
something e very organization has
to work towards each day, and we
aren’t going to shy away from our
responsibility to take a deep look
at our own culture following this
event.”
Craig Mastantuono, a lawyer
for Ferrill’s family, declined to
comment.
Muhammad, w ho worked at t he
brewery f rom 2 015 to 2019, said he
endured taunts from co-workers
about his name and the fact that
he is a practicing Muslim. He said
people would call him Jamal or
Salami.
“I’d hear jokes about m e putting
a bomb in someone’s car or put-
ting a bomb somewhere in the
building,” said Muhammad, 32. “I
never took it to management be-
cause t here was a time when a guy
was making a joke in front of a
supervisor and the supervisor
didn’t say a thing about it.”
Muhammad said the stress of
the environment took a toll on his
health. He gained weight and was
crippled by anxiety. He said he
almost called a suicide hotline.
Finally, he q uit.
Current and former employees
said the brewery department was
notorious for talk of racism and
sexism.
“It’s a good old boys club to this
day. There was a saying on the
brewery floor — ‘no blacks, no
b-----s,’ ” said a current employee
who spoke on the condition of
anonymity f or fear of jeopardizing
his job.
A former brewery floor worker,
who also s poke on the condition o f
anonymity because he did not
want to affect his current employ-
ment, said there was “constant
harassment. T he c onstant n itpick-
ing. The constant racial things
that were done and allowed to be
done because our complaints fell
on deaf ears.”
Robert Powell, a sanitation
worker at the plant from 2013 to
2018, said he saw the n-word
scrawled i n a bathroom stall in t he
brewery and a swastika carved
into a locker room wall. He re-
called a conversation with Ferrill
in March 2016, w hile they w ere o n
break watching college basketball
games.
“He was a cool guy, didn’t showtor,” said Milwaukee Police Chief
Alfonso Morales, regarding the
racism allegations, during an in-
terview on news radio station
WTMJ.
In a statement released
Wednesday, the Milwaukee Police
Department said that, based o n its
preliminary investigation, neither
race n or racism p layed a role in the
shooting. The department “is not
aware of any of the victims target-
ed in the mass shooting being
involved in any inappropriate or
racist behavior toward the sus-
pect.”
Ferrill, who is black, worked as
an electrician at the facility for 17
years.
Six c urrent a nd f ormer employ-
ees and others with knowledge of
the b rewery said o vertly r acist acts
have happened there for years. A
noose was found on F errill’s l ocker
in 2015, they said, prompting a
brewery-wide meeting with hu-
man resources.
The employees also described a
workplace where minority work-BY ANNIE GOWEN
AND KATIE ZEZIMAmilwaukee — Current and for-
mer employees of the Molson Co-
ors brewery here say there is a
long-held culture of racism, in-
cluding racist cartoons placed in
workspaces, the n-word scrawled
in break rooms and bathrooms
and nooses hung at the facility —
one on the locker of an employee
who killed five co-workers there
last week.
Police have not provided a mo-
tive for the Feb. 26 rampage,
which ended when gunman An-
thony Ferrill killed himself inside
the famous brewery that has pro-
duced Miller beer for more than a
century.
“I don’t believe that was a fac-
Workers: Noose hung on brewery gunman’s locker in 2015
Employees allege a deep
culture of racism
exists a t M olson CoorsKamIl KrzaczynsKI/agence France-presse/getty Images
The Molson Coors Brewing Co. campus in Milwaukee, where 1,700 brewery employees work. Anthony
Ferrill, a longtime electrician there, s hot and killed five co-workers Feb. 2 6 before killing himself.