Blacks Warmly Forgive Jurist Who Used Slur

Embattled Glendale Municipal Court Commissioner Daniel F. Calabro received a warm reception Friday from black clergymen and civil rights leaders after he apologized at a prayer breakfast for using the racial epithet “nigger” from the bench.

“I accept your regrets. I believe the black community does as well,” Raymond Johnson, president of the Los Angeles chapter of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People, told Calabro at the gathering, hosted by Los Angeles County Supervisor Kenneth Hahn.

“We hope that this will get behind us now. We hope that we can move on to the bigger fights that really face us,” Johnson added.

Sought Investigation

Earlier in the week, Johnson, saying he was “appalled” by Calabro’s use of the derogatory term, had called for an investigation into whether the judicial officer is biased.

Another breakfast speaker, Albert de Blanc Jr., chairman of the county Human Relations Commission and a former deputy public defender, said he has received a “barrage” of calls supporting Calabro, 54.

“We understand there was no malice or bias on your part,” De Blanc said.

More than 50 people, including 15 clergymen and two judges--U.S. District Judge Dickran Tevrizian and Los Angeles Municipal Judge Maxine F. Thomas--attended the breakfast of scrambled eggs and bacon on Hahn’s office balcony. The supervisor said he hoped to engender a spirit of “good will, harmony, peace and forgiveness.”

Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner, who earlier this week effectively removed Calabro from hearing cases, was not invited to the breakfast and was said by aides to be out of the state.

Reiner spokesman Al Albergate said the reaction from black leaders would have no effect on the district attorney’s position.

“The issue isn’t accepting an apology,” Albergate said. “It’s whether he should hear cases. That position hasn’t changed.”

Since Calabro is a commissioner, both sides in a criminal proceeding have to agree to let him hear a case.

Calabro used the epithet during a June 15 hearing involving a white defendant who had been accused of attacking a black man after calling him a “nigger.”

“Another nigger case?” Calabro asked, according to a transcript. “Another one where this nigger business came up? We’re not past that yet? I thought we were all past that.”

At the breakfast, the commissioner, who was next to Hahn, said: “I did not by the utterance embrace or endorse any put-down, or any negative inference toward any person, or any group of persons. I am not a bigot, I am not prejudiced. . . .

“I most grievously regret any offense--any offense--to anyone, especially to the entire black community of Los Angeles County, that my utterance may have caused,” Calabro added.

He said he made the statement after he saw “that specific racial epithet” in a police report and was reminded of a similar case he had heard only five days before.

“When I saw the word, I just said, ‘It can’t be. This is not happening--another case involving the same identical issue.’ And it was so distressing, and so agonizing for me to have to see it again.”

Before accepting Calabro’s apology, the NAACP’s Johnson chided him for using a term that should be “outside our vocabulary.”

“What was troubling to us, and still is troubling to me, is the fact that the word was used,” Johnson said.

Afterward, another participant criticized Reiner for “reaching for straws” in attacking Calabro.

“Our very learned D.A. was premature in his assessment of the statement,” said the Rev. C. C. Coleman, president of the Lynwood Ministerial Assn. “He should have talked to the commissioner first.”

But Johnson said: “If it had come across my desk, instead of Ira Reiner’s desk, I would have exposed it. We would not have glossed over it or ignored it.”