Arrests of Teen Members of ‘Skinhead’ Faction Spell End to Spree of ‘Hate Crimes,’ Police Say

When nine police officers burst through the door of Michael Casey Martin’s home 10 days ago, the 18-year-old Chatsworth high school dropout was asleep in his bedroom, comfortably surrounded by the trappings of the youth gang he both founded and led.

Police said they found in Martin’s room a gang photo album and newsletters, a 9-millimeter handgun and a .22-caliber rifle, a membership roster and a book that described gang rules, dress and tactics.

But the surroundings were not like those the officers had seen in connection with most youth gangs in the San Fernando Valley. Hung side by side on the wall of his bedroom were the flag of the Confederacy and the Federal Republic of Germany. On the nightstand next to the bed was a copy of Adolf Hitler’s manifesto, “Mein Kampf.” In the photo album, the pictures were of young men wearing Nazi armbands, posing in sieg-heil salute, according to police.

Leader Called ‘Peanut’

The newsletters and pamphlets espoused the philosophy of white supremacy and racial violence. Another book in the room, “Auschwitz: The True Story,” argues that the Holocaust never took place.

Martin, known as “Peanut” by other members of the gang he named the Reich Skins, was taken in handcuffs after the raid at the two-bedroom Chatsworth home he shared with his mother. In the days following, Los Angeles police arrested seven younger members of the gang. Police said the group, which had operated primarily in the western part of the Valley, was involved in racial terrorism activities--”hate” crimes--for four to six months before the arrests. Now, they say it has been effectively stamped out.

The Reich Skins, detectives said, are a faction of the “skinhead” youth movement, identified by its members’ shaved heads, tattoos, black boots and leather jackets. The group began in England more than a decade ago, sparked by social unrest and rock ‘n’ roll, but it is now an international phenomenon largely driven by Neo-Nazi philosophy and racism.

The arrests of Martin and other Reich Skins have introduced a new chapter to the book on gangs in Los Angeles, police said.

“Young people want to feel they belong somewhere,” said Lt. Warren Knowles of the Los Angeles Police Devonshire Division. “But I don’t know exactly how or why that feeling spins into something like this.”

However they arrived at their views, the Reich Skins apparently made no effort to keep a low profile. Nazi swastikas were posted on light poles along three blocks in Chatsworth. A Latino high school boy and his family were threatened in their Granada Hills home by armed intruders chanting “white power.” More swastikas were painted and literature espousing white supremacy was posted at Granada Hills High School as an initiation rite.

About 25 Members

All of those actions and many others have been attributed by police and school officials to the Reich Skins, a group of about 25 youths in the Valley aged 14 to 20 years old.

Authorities say skinheads also exist in Orange County, particularly in Huntington Beach, where members have been known to post racist literature and graffiti. The Reich Skins, however, are believed to have committed more aggressive acts, leading police to consider them more of an immediate threat.

Martin was at the center of a handful of members responsible for most of the Reich Skin’s activities, police said. Surrounding that core were several youths who apparently did not understand what they were involved in, who police said were “sucked in.”

Martin has connections to a number of white power groups such as the Ku Klux Klan, White Aryan Resistance, National Socialist White American Party and Aryan Alliance, police said. Some of those groups provided the literature and stickers used by the Reich Skins.

Police said the Reich Skins also had an affiliation with a national association of skinhead groups. A recent eight-page newsletter from “Skinheads of America” describes the group’s beliefs this way:

“Skinheads of America, like the dynamic Skinheads in Europe, are working class Aryan youth. We oppose the capitalist and communist scum that are destroying our race.” It continues with anti-Semitic vitriol.

According to an Anti-Defamation League report on the skinheads issued Friday, the members’ appearance symbolizes “tough, patriotic, anti-immigrant, working-class attitudes in contrast to the supposedly sissyish, pacifist, liberal, middle-class views of the long-hairs.”

The ADL reported those same attitudes made skinheads attractive to British-based neo-Nazi groups, and the youths became targets of those groups’ recruiting efforts. Eventually, it caused a philosophical fissure among the skinheads.

“This started as a rock ‘n’ roll thing,” Knowles said. “But eventually it split into two groups--one part was into white supremacy, the other had believers in racial harmony.”

According to the ADL report, skinhead groups have been identified in California in Orange County, San Francisco and San Jose. The largest U.S. group is in Chicago, called Romantic Violence.

Betsy Rosenthal, ADL’s Western states counsel, said the Reich Skins faction had been unknown to the League until Martin’s arrest. She said the group bears careful monitoring.

“The major threat is if this group signifies that there is a possible rise in hate activities among youth,” Rosenthal said.

Detective Michael Brandt, who has headed the Reich Skins investigation, said the same split among skinhead factions that occurred in England is evident in the Valley. He said investigators have identified several “two-tone” skinhead factions or clubs--the United Skins, the Mickey Mouse Club, the Mods and the West Coast Front--that operate in the West Valley and adhere to philosophies of racial harmony.

Police said evidence of that can be found in their membership, graffiti and even their shoelaces. The Reich Skins laced their combat boots with white laces, symbolizing white power. The two-tone groups, who have blacks and Latinos in their membership, tie their boots with beige laces.

In recent months, there have been several confrontations, fights and possibly a shooting incident between the Reich Skins and other groups clashing at local parks and shopping malls, police said.

‘A Definite Division’

“They started forming earlier this year,” said Brandt. “There was no real organization. But it was basically one group. But then some started moving toward white pride and then to white power. Others moved away. There was a definite division. . . . When school started this year, it all heated up.”

Police said most of the Reich Skins core group dropped out of high schools this year, as Martin had done the year before. Detectives said the group’s activities were believed carried out almost entirely at the direction of Martin. He is being held in lieu of $100,000 bail at the Los Angeles County Jail on charges of attempted burglary and using unlawful, violent acts to effect political change. Under an obscure 1919 Criminal Syndicalism Act, he is charged with distributing the racist literature and painting the racist graffiti.

The complaint also alleges that on Oct. 7 he and a juvenile companion tried to break into the Granada Hills home of a Latino high school student. The complaint says that Martin carried a gun and yelled “white power,” “down with Mexicans” and “down with blacks.”

The seven juveniles arrested will face lesser charges, officials said.

Martin, who has pleaded innocent to the charges, was described by school officials as an average student who was a loner on the Chatsworth High School campus before dropping out.

“He kept a low profile here, kept mostly to himself,” said Reno Lorenz, assistant principal. “We knew of no gang affiliation that he had while he was here.”

According to police, Martin and the core Reich Skins had associated with Tom Metzger, leader of the White Aryan Resistance and former Klan Grand Dragon. The ADL report states that WAR has attempted to expand by recruiting skinheads.

Metzger, of Fallbrook near San Diego, said he has known Martin for about a year, but did not recruit members of the Reich Skins or influence them.

“They contacted me,” Metzger said. “We have friendly contacts. But they have their own agenda. In no way do we tell them what to do.”

Police said Martin’s mother was as astonished by what her son was accused of as the parents of other Reich Skins members and some school officials were. Some parents were surprised to find that their sons had swastika tattoos.

“None of the parents of these kids realized what their kids were into,” Brandt said. “They just thought their kids were trying to be cool.”

What the parents, school officials and investigators still find puzzling was how and why youths from mostly middle-class Valley families became aligned with such extremist views. Some question whether they truly understood the meaning of their actions.

“Knowing high school students, I would say that the affiliation is greater than their beliefs,” said Jim Ball, principal of John F. Kennedy High School in Granada Hills where officials say some Reich Skins were recruited.

Gregory Bodenhamer, a former probation officer who founded the program Back in Control in Southern California to help parents deal with incorrigible youths, said the skinhead groups are often attractive to youths who long for a sense of belonging.

“That image of the skinheads--the shaved heads and the boots--is emotionally powerful to kids,” Bodenhamer said. “It gives you immediate identity and immediate power and immediate friends.”

Police said some of the younger members apparently realized they erred by joining but were too intimidated or frightened to quit.

“They felt they had to go along,” said Brandt, who noted that one boy lied and said he was not Jewish in order to belong, then ran away from home when he feared members had discovered his background.

Police said the arrests of the core members, particularly of Martin, have ended any threat from the group.

“Martin was the crux of this,” Brandt said. “With him in jail, we’ve buried the Reich Skins for now. The others have secreted themselves back into the woodwork.”