The shocking and offensive behavior that took place in the Tennessee woods during annual "Good Ol' Boy Roundups" did not involve federal agents, according to a Justice Department report.

Justice Inspector General Michael Bromwich said racist signs, skits, and comments did happen in isolated moments during the roundups, held east of Chattanooga in the years between between 1980 and 1995.But some of the gravest charges linked to the event - ranging from rape and drug use by federal agents to rampant prostitution - were not substantiated by hundreds of interviews and months of investigation.

The report urges reprimands for two federal officials - an FBI agent and a former Immigration and Naturalization officer - who attended the rallies.

"We found no evidence, and indeed received no allegations, that any current or former Department of Justice employee directly engaged in racist or other misconduct - other than one inappropriate comment by an FBI agent," the report said.

That comment was to an FBI recruit, who the unidentified agent told, "We need more good white guys like you in the Bureau."

The FBI said it was suspending the unnamed agent for five days without pay.

More egregious behavior was exhibited by local police and others attending the roundups, a yearly bash started by former Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms agent Gene Rightmyer.

"Although we conclude that much of the early Roundup news coverage was overblown and distorted, our investigation revealed ample evidence of shocking, racist, licentious and puerile behavior," the report said.

In 1990, racist signs were posted at the roundup.

The report said, "The preponderance of evidence suggested that local police officers from Florence and Boone County, Ky., were responsible for posting these signs."

Officers from those departments performed in a "Redneck of the Year" contest in 1990 in which a man in blackface was traded for a dog and then forced to simulate a sex act on a man in a Ku Klux Klan outfit.

Washington, D.C., police officers brought T-shirts to the 1991 rally showing blacks held face down on a car hood under the caption "Boyz on the Hood," the report found. In 1995, officers from Fort Lauderdale brought a T-shirt showing the initials "O.J." and a stick figure on a gallows from the "hangman" game.

Rightmyer criticized these things but took no other action, the report found.

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The roundups began in 1980 as an unofficial gathering of 58 law enforcement officers, the report found. By the early 1990s, more than 500 people were attending. Only about 10 percent were federal law enforcement officers and most had no police background.

Over the years, 44 Justice Department officials and 100 to 150 Treasury Department employees attended the rallies.

The initial leaks to news organizations leading to the Roundup flap came from two members of a militia group in Alabama whose motive was to embarrass the ATF.

The report said disciplinary action was "not warranted for the vast majority of (federal officials) who attended the roundups," the report said. "They saw an event marked by excessive alcohol consumption and puerile behavior and never returned."

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