Hate Crimes Orange County

On Main Street, everyone has a story about the skinheads. Shawna Sakal, whose family owns a surf shop, remembers the black store clerk harassed by young toughs. Curtis Maddox recalls the four meaty arms jerking out of a passing car in Hitler-style salutes. Lance Lee, a sales clerk at Beachcomber's Surf Shop, tells of the man who came in the other day looking to sell his surfboard. "It had swastikas all over it," Lee said. "We bought it, but we had to paint them over."

Meeting Thursday for the first time since the attacks on New York and the Pentagon, Orange County's Commission on Human Relations adopted a plan to respond to an increase in hate crimes. Executive Director Rusty Kennedy said that since Sept. 11, the commission has taken 24 reports of hate crimes related to people thought to be of Middle Eastern descent. "Twenty-four incidents is more than we have ever had targeting this community in any year," Kennedy said.

On Main Street, everyone has a story about the skinheads. Shawna Sakal, whose family owns a surf shop, remembers the black store clerk harassed by young toughs. Curtis Maddox recalls the four meaty arms jerking out of a passing car in Hitler-style salutes. Lance Lee, a salesclerk at Beachcomber's Surf Shop, tells of the man who came in the other day to sell his surfboard. "It had swastikas all over it," Lee said. "We bought it, but we had to paint them over."

A Huntington Beach man has been arrested on suspicion of making a death threat against an elderly Iranian couple out for a morning stroll in their neighborhood, police said Monday. Steven James McManus, 43, probably will be charged today with a felony hate crime, said Lt. Bill Peterson, a spokesman for the Huntington Beach Police Dept. According to investigators, the 77-year-old man and 74-year-old woman were taking a walk about 9 a.m.

Hate crimes in Orange County dropped 21% last year, including attacks by skinhead and white supremacist groups, the Orange County Human Relations Commission announced Thursday. "I think it's an indication that communities are not accepting this kind of behavior and are becoming more active, and people are reporting these kinds of crimes," commission Chairman William Wood said. The commission documented 145 "hate crimes and incidents" in 1997, compared with 183 the year before.

More hate crimes in Orange County are committed against African Americans than any other racial, ethnic or lifestyle group, Fran Williams, the chairwoman of the county Human Relations Commission, told Chapman University students Monday. Williams spoke to the university's weekly Social Science Forum on the topic of hate crimes.

Calling the numbers alarmingly high, the Orange County Human Relations Commission on Wednesday reported an increase in hate crimes and said the most common perpetrators are white male teenagers who mainly target African Americans and Jews. The commission documented 183 "hate crimes and incidents" in 1996, the highest number for such crimes since 188 were reported in 1992.

A reward of up to $3,000 was offered Thursday to help authorities find and convict whoever burned a 6-foot wooden cross outside the home of a Jewish family in Huntington Beach. "When one finds a cross burning in 1998 in an Orange County community, it is something to take very seriously," said Joyce Greenspan, director of the Anti-Defamation League, which offered the reward. "Cross burnings are incredibly difficult for victims to deal with."

Councilwoman Linda Moulton-Patterson said she will introduce a resolution condemning hate crimes, such as threats or assaults against minorities and gays, at Monday night's City Council meeting. "I've been concerned because of the number of hate crimes in Orange County, and we want to make it clear that those sorts of things are not going to be tolerated in Huntington Beach," Moulton-Patterson said.

Crimes motivated by hatred of minorities or homosexuals increased more than 25% last year in Orange County, according to a study released Friday by the Hate Crime Network, a coalition of the Human Relations Commission and every police agency in the county. African-Americans were the most targeted group, although they represent only 2% of the county's population, followed by Asians and then gays.

Hate crimes in Orange County plunged last year to the lowest level in more than a decade, according to a report released Thursday, with Jews being the most common target of such attacks. The Orange County Human Relations Commission recorded 122 hate crimes in 2000, an 11% decline from the year before. Reports of serious hate crimes such as verbal and physical assaults were down significantly, but incidents of hate-related vandalism jumped from 38 in 1999 to 60 last year.

Racist and anti-woman graffiti was spray-painted on two Costa Mesa homes for women with substance abuse problems this weekend, authorities said. One of the homes was previously used as a crack house by a white supremacist group, police and an administrator of the home said. Yellowstone West on Boston Way had a racist slur sprayed on the door, as well as a swastika and two lightning bolts symbolic of the Nazis, said Costa Mesa police Lt. Tom Curtis. The damage was done sometime between 10:30 p.m.

Police said Sunday they are investigating the scrawling of anti-Semitic graffiti on an Anaheim house as a possible hate crime. Raphael Pazo called authorities Sunday morning after finding slurs spray-painted in black on his front door, garage and car. The father of four, who lives near Temple Beth Emet and Loara High School, said he heard no sounds during the night. "It was supposed to be a day of joy," Pazo said, referring to the Jewish holiday Simcha Torah. "I was shocked.

Orange County recorded a slight increase in hate crimes over the last year, according to a state report released Thursday. There were a total of 89 hate crime offenses reported in 1999, compared to 83 the year before, an increase of about 7%, the report stated. The crimes involved 143 victims, compared to 114 in 1998. More than a quarter of all hate crimes in California last year occurred in Los Angeles, nearly three times as many as the next highest city.

As part of a statewide program, the Orange County Human Relations Commission will hold a hearing Wednesday in Santa Ana in an attempt to find out what keeps people from reporting hate crimes. Among the scheduled speakers is the sister of Thien Minh Ly, the victim of a racially motivated killing on a Tustin High School tennis court in 1996.

A Yorba Linda man already in state custody was indicted Thursday on federal hate-crime charges in connection with the stabbing of an African American teenager three years ago in Buena Park, prosecutors said. Jeffrey Stuart Martin, 24, is being held on $100,000 bail at the Theo Lacy Branch Jail in Orange on unrelated charges of possessing a controlled substance while armed and possessing a firearm as a felon, jail officials said. In the indictment, filed in U.S.

Skinheads and other white supremacists were responsible for the majority of hate crimes in Orange County in 1995, committing 102 of 175 crimes and targeting African Americans and Jews in the largest numbers, according to a report by the Orange County Human Relations Commission. The study released Thursday said that while the number of reported hate crimes in the county declined slightly, the number of crimes against African Americans rose from 36 to 44, accounting for 25% of all hate crimes.

A white skinhead accused of the shooting death of a middle-aged black man last week--a slaying police now say was a probable hate crime--was charged Monday with the attempted murder of two Latino men in a shooting last month, police said. Police say 19-year-old Jonathan Russell Kennedy, 19, now being held without bail at the Orange County Jail, shot Juan Vergara and Angel Campos Silia, apparently without provocation just after midnight Aug. 3.

An appeals court Tuesday rejected the arguments of a Huntington Beach teenager who said he was too drunk to know what he was doing and that he had consent when he burned a cross in a Jewish couple's yard two years ago. Daniel Patrick Carr, 19, was sentenced to two years in prison last year after a jury convicted him of desecrating a religious symbol. The panel deadlocked on the more serious charge of arson, which would have made the act a hate crime.

A former local man was sentenced Friday to 37 months in prison, ending the first federal prosecution of a hate crime assault in Orange County. Kevin Timothy Dale, 23, could have received up to 10 years in federal prison after pleading guilty in January to charges that he helped beat another man unconscious after a punk rock concert in Orange in 1995.