Rise in ‘Skinheads’ a Worrisome Trend, Gang Expert Says

“Skinheads” are the dominant white gang in Orange County, with a broad membership that dips into all economic classes and extends all over the county, a gang suppression officer told an educators’ seminar in Garden Grove on Thursday.

Skinheads get their name from the shaved-head or close-cropped haircuts worn by their members. Skinheads also favor military-type clothes, tattoos and Nazi symbols. Some Skinheads, but not all, according to anti-gang officials, are virulent white supremacists.

Michael Fleager, a deputy probation officer assigned to the county’s gang suppression unit, said that Skinheads are militant and dangerous because they love to pick fights. “They like to go to places where someone might comment on how strange they look, and then they start a fight over it,” Fleager said.

“They love violence. And they also are hard-core drug and alcohol abusers.”

Fleager said that while Skinheads like to assert that they’re hard-working, middle-class people, “that’s a lot of garbage.”

He said the high drug use among many Skinheads is more than “hard-working, middle-class” people can afford. Many Skinheads support their drug habit, he said, simply by getting money from their parents.

He added that many parents are “in denial” about both their children’s drug use and their membership in a neo-Nazi organization.

Fleager discussed Skinheads during a session of the Ethnic Cultures and Youth Violence seminar at Garden Grove Community Center. The two-day seminar, sponsored by the Orange County Department of Education, concludes today.

The seminar has focused on gangs that are spawned by ethnic groups. Fleager said that in Orange County, Latino gangs are much more numerous than white gangs. But he said the recent rise in the numbers of Skinheads makes them notable and worrisome for county officials.

Fleager, in an interview after his talk, declined to estimate gang membership in the county. But he said that overall membership here “is in the thousands, and the Skinheads have hundreds.”

“Predominantly in Orange County we’re dealing with one menace, as far as white gangs,” he said during the seminar. “And that is Skinheads. . . . Now we still have the Punks and the (Heavy) Metal-ers, and we still have the Satanic problem, but they’re not organized according to gang structure.”

Originated in England

Fleager said that like the Punks, the Skinheads originated in England. He said that in the United States, including Orange County, the Skinheads “are directly influenced by the KKK (Ku Klux Klan) and the Aryan Brotherhood.” Both the KKK and the Aryan Brotherhood are adult, secretive organizations that spread hatred against blacks, Latinos and other minorities.

Fleager said that Skinheads, in addition to favoring military jackets, like military-type weapons. “One kid we have on videotape, and he’s describing how to make homemade napalm.”

Fleager said that Skinheads in Orange County have been involved in assault and vandalism cases. An initiation rite calls for a prospective Skinhead to be in a “jump in” during which gang members beat on him or her, Fleager said. He added that a free-lance magazine photographer recently tried to photograph an initiation rite of Skinheads, and the gang turned on him. “Luckily he was saved because there were some police in the bushes nearby,” Fleager said.

“The common denominator among parents (about gang membership) is denial,” Fleager said. He said that parents frequently deny anything is wrong, even when faced with their children’s bizarre gang-style clothing. “They say it’s just a fad,” he said.

Parental Leadership

Fleager said that one Orange County mother continued to give money to her child, a member of a gang, even though she had been warned he was using it to buy drugs. “She was in denial and just would not believe he was into drugs,” Fleager said.

Another speaker during Thursday’s seminar said that lack of parental leadership can lead to gang membership.

Tony Mesengele, assistant director of an anti-gang program in Los Angeles, said that “a family too fragile or too busy” to spend “quality time” with its children invites trouble. Such families, he said, are not “spending time to transmit values to those children.”

Gangs, he added, unfortunately can fill the void when children are left without solid family values.