Hate Crimes

One punch was all it took. One punch to forever divide. One punch to kill a young man. On a hot summer afternoon along a placid lakefront in the Sacramento suburbs, Satender Singh had come with a group of fellow Fijians to celebrate his promotion at an AT&T call center. Three married couples and Singh, a lighthearted 26-year-old, drank and hooted and danced a crazy conga line to East Indian music. An innocent outing? Not in the eyes of the Russian family a few picnic tables away.

As 14-year-old Brandon McInerney prepares to be arraigned today inthe slaying of 15-year-old Lawrence "Larry" King at E.O. Green Junior High School in Oxnard, his lawyer is advancing a defense that at least partly blames school officials for the tragedy. Educators should have moved aggressively to quell rising tensions between the two boys, which began when King openly flirted with McInerney, said William Quest, the Ventura County assistant public defender representing the eighth-grader.

Lawyers for a 14-year-old boy accused of fatally shooting 15-year-old classmate Lawrence "Larry" King postponed entering a plea Thursday and sought instead to transfer the case to juvenile court. Brandon McInerney's attorney, Willie Quest, said the motion would challenge the constitutionality of trying his client as an adult. McInerney faces a charge of premeditated murder for allegedly killing King at school Feb. 12, after King openly flirted with him on campus. Prosecutors have labeled it a hate crime.

Hate crimes in Los Angeles County rose to their highest level in five years last year, led by attacks between Latinos and blacks, officials said Thursday. The annual report by the Los Angeles County Human Relations Commission showed hate crimes rose by 28%, to 763, with vandalism and assault leading the way.

The Justice Department said Wednesday it had opened an investigation into the fatal beating of a Mexican immigrant in a small northeastern Pennsylvania town. The federal involvement comes less than a week after local officials in Schuylkill County charged three white teens in this month's attack in Shenandoah on Luis Ramirez, a 25-year-old father of two.

The 14-year-old boy charged with fatally shooting a gay classmate at an Oxnard middle school pleaded not guilty Thursday. A preliminary hearing was set for Sept. 23. After Brandon McInerney's arraignment, his attorney told reporters that he plans to appeal a Ventura County Superior Court judge's ruling that allows the teenager to be tried as an adult. If convicted, McInerney would face a 53-years-to-life sentence and be eligible for parole in his 60s -- "if he survives that long," said Deputy Public Defender Willy Quest.

An $11,500 reward is being offered for information about the vandals who scrawled hate symbols outside the Ner Tamid Jewish Synagogue last weekend. A swastika and the number 14, a reference to a white supremacist group, were spray-painted, the third such case at the synagogue since April. The reward is being offered by the county's Crime Stoppers fund, the Hate Crimes Reward Fund and the San Diego branch of the Anti-Defamation League. -- Tony Perry

Officials of a small Christian university in Newberg say a life-size cardboard reproduction of Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama was hung from a tree on campus, an act with racial undertones that outraged students and school leaders alike. George Fox University President Robin Baker said a custodian discovered the effigy early Tuesday and removed it. University spokesman Rob Felton said that the commercially produced reproduction had been suspended from the branch of a tree with fishing line around the neck.

A Muslim candidate for the Irvine City Council said Thursday that a councilman's comment linking an Islamic civil rights group to terrorism has led to a death threat against him. Police said they are investigating. Attorney Todd Gallinger, a Muslim convert, said a man called his office Tuesday, about three weeks after Councilman Steven Choi spoke at a forum and urged voters not to support a candidate who worked for the Council on American-Islamic Relations.

Law enforcement officials Thursday appealed for information from the public to solve what Dist. Atty. Bonnie Dumanis called a series of "cowardly" attacks that included racist, anti-Mexican and anti-Semitic graffiti sprayed on two schools, a medical office, a Catholic school, a church and a park in Chula Vista. The attacks took place over a series of weeks, officials said. A reward of $5,500 has been offered through Crime Stoppers, the Hate Crime Reward Fund, and Anti-Defamation League.