Racial Incidents in County During 1986 Show Huge Rise

With ominous diversity, the number of racially and religiously motivated acts of vandalism and violence in Los Angeles County climbed 82% in 1986, the biggest year-to-year increase on record, according to a report issued Friday by the county’s Human Relations Commission.

The most striking increase involved racial incidents, which climbed to 58 last year from 13 in 1985, a 346% increase. Nearly three-quarters were directed against blacks.

About a quarter of the incidents were aimed at Asians, while only three such attacks against Latinos were reported. Officials said those totals were probably severely under-reported because of the general unwillingness of people with questionable immigration status to report crimes.

The huge increase in racial incidents was skewed by the fact that 30 of the incidents involved only three targets: 19 were directed at two interracial couples in Westchester and the foothill community of Montrose. (In both instances, the partners were black and white.) Eleven others were directed against a black businesswoman whose Glendale delicatessen was continually defaced by racist graffiti.

However, even if those 30 attacks had been counted as only three, racially motivated attacks still would have been 138% above 1985, and more than double the highest number counted by the county since the annual process began in 1981.

“There is more openly expressed hostility,” said commission President Albert DeBlanc.

Reports of religiously motivated incidents increased by nearly 34%, to 95 from 71 in 1985. That was more than any year on record except 1982, when 101 incidents were reported.

More than 80% of the religious incidents were directed at Jews or their places of worship. The number of anti-Semitic incidents increased by 32%, to 78 from 59 in 1985. Attacks against Islamic mosques or individuals of the Islamic faith decreased to eight from 12. Until 1985, no anti-Islamic attacks had been recorded by the commission.

Most of the recorded incidents involved acts of vandalism, ranging from spray-painted swastikas and other graffiti to broken windows. However, a substantial number were dangerous or cruel.

There was, for example, the Jewish family in Burbank whose electrical power was shut off by an epithet-shouting neighbor in April; the Latino family in Long Beach who had slingshot-fired stones aimed at them and their home last July; the black child who was asked by a white man in a Venice park last September if she wanted flowers stenciled on the back of her shirt, and discovered later that instead he had stenciled anti-black language, and the Arcadia rabbi who found that Christmas tree flocking spray had been used to paint a swastika and “white power” sign on his home in December.

Most of the victims expressed frustration with their inability to stop such attacks and went on with their lives, the commission’s report said, but some were forced to give in. The Glendale deli owner leased out her business and the Westchester interracial family fled their home after the family’s pet rabbit was shot.

The report said the commission is “deeply concerned by the increased diversity of targets.”

While the largest number of religiously motivated incidents took place in the 3rd Supervisorial District, which has the most concentrated Jewish population, and the highest number of racial incidents took place in the 5th District, which includes the largely white San Fernando Valley and the cities of Glendale and Burbank, incidents were spread through virtually every section of the county.

DeBlanc and Eugene Mornell, the commission’s executive director, had no direct explanations for the sharp increase. Nor was either of them willing to draw a connection between Los Angeles’ statistics and persistent suggestions that the United States is experiencing a resurgence of racism, as witnessed in racial attacks in Howard Beach, N.Y., and Forsyth County, Ga.

The best DeBlanc and Mornell could do was to cite factors that have been at work for years in Los Angeles--economic hardship and an influx of immigrants, which they said create resentment and racial tension.

Commission officials acknowledged that their reporting process, which relies on the willingness of law enforcement, fair housing councils, religious organizations and victims to come forth, is not scientific. But Mornell insisted that there had been no substantial changes in the reporting process during the last year and said he believed the numbers reflect a genuine and troublesome increase.

Last week, Raymond L. Johnson, president of the Los Angeles chapter of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People, said that attacks and discrimination against blacks have increased locally in recent years and blamed the attitude of the Reagan Administration for an upswing in “bigotry in ideas, thoughts and actions by many individuals.”

Johnson said discrimination complaints to the NAACP have increased 40% over the last two years, and a spokeswoman for Johnson said Friday that the county statistics bolster his claim.

By contrast, an official of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith said its annual survey of anti-Semitic violence ran counter to the county report. The B’nai B’rith found that anti-Semitic incidents decreased by 28% in California and 7% nationwide in 1986.

Hallie Esbin, an assistant director of the group’s Los Angeles office, said the county may have inflated its statistics by counting repeat attacks on the same victim as separate incidents.

For example, last year the B’nai B’rith was told of 13 incidents of swastika painting against one target, but counted it as only one attack in its calculations.

Human Relations Commission spokeswoman Celia Zager said that the 1986 report involved the largest number of repeat attacks, but she said “we feel that is beside the point” as long as the annual report takes pains to point out such facts.

VANDALISM, VIOLENCE

Annual totals of reported religious and racially motivated vandalism and violence.

RELIGIOUS RACIAL TOTAL 1981 61 4 65 1982 101 15 116 1983 81 11 92 1984 70 13 83 1985 71 13 84 1986 95 58 153

Source: L . A . County Human Relations Commission