Grand Knighthawk: Infiltrating the KKK

What Is the Series About?

Grand Knighthawk: Infiltrating the KKK is a 2023 documentary film produced by ABC News Studios and The Associated Press, streaming on Hulu. The film centers on a chilling 2015 murder-plot case out of northern Florida, in which three current or former state correctional officers — also Ku Klux Klan members — allegedly conspired to kill a Black former inmate. At the heart of the story is Joe Moore, a former U.S. Army infantryman who went undercover inside the Klan and worked alongside the FBI to stop what investigators called a racially motivated assassination plan. The documentary runs 76 minutes and represents one of the most direct examinations in recent years of the dangerous overlap between white supremacist organizations and American law enforcement.

The Case

In 2015, federal authorities arrested three men in the Gainesville area of northern Florida on charges related to a conspiracy to murder a Black man who had previously been incarcerated in the Florida corrections system. According to ABC7NY, ABC News characterized the alleged plot as a "modern-day lynching," underscoring the racially motivated nature of the alleged crime. All three suspects were identified as current or former Florida correctional officers and as members of the Ku Klux Klan — a detail that alarmed federal investigators and civil rights advocates alike, given that the men had carried state authority over incarcerated people.

The victim, identified in available sources only as a Black former inmate, had apparently drawn the attention and hostility of the Klan-affiliated officers during or after his time in the corrections system. The precise circumstances of why he was targeted have not been fully detailed in the documentary's publicly available promotional materials, though the racial animus is treated as central to the case.

The investigation that foiled the plot was a covert FBI operation. Central to its success was Joe Moore, a former Army infantryman who agreed to go undercover and embed himself within the Ku Klux Klan in northern Florida. Moore's infiltration gave federal agents the intelligence needed to intervene before the alleged murder could be carried out. The AP press release announcing the documentary describes Moore's role in detail and notes that the film includes exclusive new interviews with the FBI agents who oversaw the operation. Beyond the specific murder plot, the documentary argues that the case exposes systemic corruption — the deeply troubling reality that men entrusted with state power over incarcerated people were simultaneously members of a violent white supremacist organization.

The full names of the three arrested men, the outcome of their trials, and their current legal status are not confirmed in the sources available at the time of publication. Sentencing details and formal verdicts have not been verified from the documentary's promotional materials alone.

Production

The documentary was produced by ABC News Studios in partnership with The Associated Press, with George Stephanopoulos serving as an executive producer — lending the project significant institutional credibility and journalistic weight. The director has not been identified in available sources. The production secured what it describes as exclusive access to FBI personnel directly involved in the case, giving the film a level of insider testimony that distinguishes it from purely archival reconstructions. Joe Moore himself appears in the documentary, recounting his experience as an undercover operative inside one of America's most notorious hate organizations. A trailer was released via ABC News' YouTube channel ahead of the April 27, 2023 premiere. The film's title — Grand Knighthawk — refers to a specific rank within the Ku Klux Klan's internal hierarchy, a title Moore is understood to have assumed or encountered during his infiltration work, signaling the depth of access he achieved.

Reception

At the time of writing, no formal critical consensus or aggregated review score is available from the sources consulted. The IMDb page for the documentary (tt27625793) lists the film with its correct runtime and release year, but a verified audience rating score could not be confirmed from available data. The documentary's subject matter — Klan infiltration of law enforcement, a foiled racially motivated murder, and the use of a civilian undercover operative — has generated significant attention in the context of ongoing national conversations about systemic racism within corrections and policing in the United States. The film's association with ABC News Studios and The Associated Press positions it as a prestige investigative documentary rather than a sensationalist true crime production. Viewer and critical responses have not been documented in the sources available for this article.

The Case Today

The 2015 northern Florida KKK murder-plot case remains a landmark example of federal intervention against racially motivated violence perpetrated by individuals embedded within state institutions. The documentary's 2023 release — nearly a decade after the arrests — reflects renewed public and journalistic interest in examining how white supremacist ideology has historically penetrated law enforcement and corrections systems in the American South and beyond. The status of the three arrested men, including whether convictions were secured and whether any appeals remain ongoing, could not be confirmed from the sources available. The broader systemic questions the case raises — about vetting, oversight, and accountability within corrections agencies — remain unresolved matters of public policy debate. Joe Moore's story, as presented in the documentary, stands as a rare first-person account of civilian courage in confronting Klan activity from within, and the film ensures that account reaches a national streaming audience for the first time.