Police Raids Los Angeles County

They call themselves the Fourth Reich Skinheads, just a loose-knit bunch of fun-loving suburban white teen-agers who share a love of their ethnic heritage and a disdain for being harassed by minorities. "We don't hate everybody of a certain race," one 16-year-old girl from Huntington Beach explained. "We only hate certain ones." The FBI last week publicly identified the skinheads as part of an alleged white supremacist conspiracy to attack African-Americans in Los Angeles and ignite a race war.

Two alleged members of the Nazi Lowriders gang were arrested after Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies seized 73 firearms in a raid, authorities said Friday. Arrested Thursday were Scott Kuhn, 29, and Marcello Castellano, 22, according to Sheriff's Deputy Margarita Velazquez of the department's headquarters unit.

State and federal agents raided a garment factory in El Monte early Wednesday that allegedly held dozens of Thai immigrants in virtual slavery behind barbed wire for years, forcing them to labor in servitude to supposedly pay off creditors. The pre-dawn raid by a multi-agency team headed by the California Department of Industrial Relations discovered more than 60 Thai nationals living and working at a gated apartment complex ringed with barbed wire and spiked fences.

Evidence collected during Wednesday's predawn raids in five cities will be valuable in the prosecution of suspects involved in the shooting death of Long Beach Officer Daryle Black, a police spokesman said Thursday. "We collected evidence that will help our case against the people who killed our officer," Officer Dave Marander said. "The six arrests were a bonus."

More than 200 police officers arrested a dozen suspected members of a notorious Orange County street gang in a four-county raid Wednesday stemming from last month's slaying of a 15-year-old Santa Ana boy. The Asian gang, which calls itself the Nip Family, with members in Orange, Riverside, Los Angeles and San Bernardino counties, has been connected to homicides, assaults, home-invasion robberies and drive-by shootings, police said.

Asian gangs in the San Gabriel Valley were targeted Wednesday in a dawn operation involving more than 300 federal, state and local law enforcement officers. Two adults and six juveniles were arrested, and 32 handguns and assault rifles were seized in what Los Angeles County sheriff's deputies billed as "the largest single-day assault on Asian organized crime in the history of the county." Deputies and other officers fanned out through the San Gabriel Valley at 5 a.m.

The parents of Christopher David Fisher, who was arrested last week and charged with plotting to blow up the First African Methodist Episcopal Church, are rounding up friends and neighbors willing to put up their property to help the Long Beach man get out on bail, Fisher's lawyer said Monday. "Their main goal is to put their property together so that he can make bail," said attorney Anna Ho. "This young man just should not be in jail."

Los Angeles County Sheriff Sherman Block on Thursday challenged the conclusion of Ventura County's top prosecutor that sheriff's deputies led a drug raid that left a reclusive millionaire dead so the government could seize the man's $5-million Malibu ranch. Block, responding to a highly critical report by Ventura County Dist. Atty. Michael D. Bradbury, said he believes his department and other law enforcement agencies acted "in good faith" when descending on the ranch of Donald P. Scott on Oct.

In dawn raids across the Southland on Thursday, teams of FBI agents and local police simultaneously arrested six leaders of an organization they say is a major supplier of drugs to street gangs. According to investigators, the organization infiltrated a major airline to ship narcotics and enlisted gang members to sell them across the country.

A task force of federal, state and county law enforcement agents arrested 20 sex offenders in parole raids throughout the Antelope Valley on Thursday, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said. All but two of those arrested were convicted of sex crimes against children, said Lt. Robert Rifkin of the Palmdale sheriff's station. Deputies based in Palmdale and Lancaster went with state parole and county probation agents as they made their routine checks of parolees, Rifkin said.

Scores of lawmen from Ventura and Los Angeles counties swept into 11 residences occupied by suspected gang members Thursday in a continuing crackdown on gang activity linked to shootings in Newbury Park last weekend that killed one man and wounded another. More than 100 deputies, investigators and gang intelligence officers from six agencies participated in the early morning searches of homes in Van Nuys and Newbury Park.

In an effort to combat gang activity, police served search warrants on 14 homes in Orange and Los Angeles counties early Wednesday and arrested an adult and a juvenile, authorities said. Rudy Sanchez, 30, was taken into custody for resisting arrest, and a 16-year-old boy was arrested on suspicion of possessing ammunition and false identification, said Lt. Steve Costanzo of the La Habra Police Department. Investigators also seized two handguns and one shotgun, Costanzo said.

Authorities searched a dozen homes Thursday seeking evidence against a gang that officials said is responsible for a drive-by shooting earlier this year in San Juan Capistrano as well as gunfire at a state senator's home and the slaying of an Oscar-winning actor. More than 132 investigators from Orange and Los Angeles County law enforcement participated in early morning raids at the homes of suspected gang members in Los Angeles, Monterey Park, Long Beach and Rosemead.

A platoon of investigators raided homes in four cities Thursday for evidence against a gang responsible for the slaying of an Oscar-winning actor and suspected in the spraying of gunfire at a state senator's home and a drive-by shooting in San Juan Capistrano. More than 132 officers from Los Angeles and Orange counties participated in early morning raids at a dozen homes of suspected gang members in Los Angeles, Monterey Park, Long Beach and Rosemead.

A task force of federal, state and county law enforcement agents arrested 20 sex offenders in parole raids throughout the Antelope Valley on Thursday, the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department said. All but two of those arrested were convicted of sex crimes against children, said Lt. Robert Rifkin of the Palmdale sheriff's station. Deputies based in Palmdale and Lancaster went with state parole and county probation agents as they made their routine checks of parolees, Rifkin said.

El Monte police and U.S. Customs agents announced Thursday that they made one of the state's largest arrests involving counterfeit sunglasses, seizing $19 million worth of fake brand-name shades and labeling equipment. Officers confiscated more than 320 cartons of counterfeit sunglasses and eye wear parts in raids Monday and Tuesday at the Yu Sheng Spectacles Industrial Co.

Oakley Inc., the Orange County maker of fashionable sunglasses, said that a major counterfeiting operation has been shut down following a six-week investigation. The Carson-based counterfeiting ring, operating under the name Spenser Products, was broken up by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department in a raid last week, the company said. About $10 million worth of copycat sunglasses, T-shirts, hats, computerized embroidery machines, printing equipment and other goods were seized.

In one of the largest-ever computer-software piracy busts in Southern California, Westminster police and the FBI confiscated an estimated $30 million worth of counterfeit Microsoft software and arrested at least six people in Los Angeles County late Wednesday afternoon. Investigators raided five warehouses--two in Long Beach, three in Paramount--as part of an ongoing examination into Orange County-based Asian gangs trafficking the illegal software.

Federal authorities have opened an investigation into the El Monte Police Department's fatal shooting of a 61-year-old grandfather during a narcotics raid in Compton, officials said Monday. Assistant U.S. Atty. Mike Gennaco said his office asked the FBI to open a probe to see if Mario Paz's civil rights were violated by the El Monte officers who, during a nighttime raid, shot off the locks to his home and then shot him in the back.

The El Monte Police Department has no evidence that anyone in the family of Mario Paz--a 65-year-old man fatally shot in the back by an El Monte officer during a search of his home Aug. 9--was involved in drug trafficking, nor did officers when they shot their way into the house in the nighttime raid, a senior police official said.