ACLU, 4 Latinos Allege Bias, Sue Magic Mountain

A civil liberties group charged in a lawsuit Monday that Six Flags Magic Mountain unjustly barred four Latinos from entering the amusement park after security guards accused them of being gang members.

The suit, filed in Los Angeles Superior Court by the American Civil Liberties Union Foundation of Southern California, seeks unspecified damages from the Valencia amusement park and the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. The Sheriff’s Department helped the park develop guidelines to weed out suspected gang members.

“It’s apparent they were singled out solely because of their race and national origin,” ACLU attorney David A. Lash said of the plaintiffs.

“We really felt humiliated,” Francisca Hernandez said at a news conference at ACLU headquarters in Los Angeles.

Civil Rights Violations

The suit says Magic Mountain violated state and federal civil rights laws. It was filed on behalf of Hernandez, 21; her brother, Juan Hernandez, 14, and their two cousins, Carlos Melgoza, 20, and Ernesto Hernandez, 19, all of Hawthorne.

Francisca Hernandez said her brother and cousins, along with a relative visiting from Mexico, went to Magic Mountain on Easter morning April 19, 1987. They had just paid their $3 parking fee when security guards ordered them to drive their van behind a wall.

“As soon as we parked the van, I heard them say, ‘They’re Mexicans,’ ” Juan Hernandez said.

Juan Hernandez said the group was ordered out of the van, frisked and questioned about several Hawthorne gangs. He said the guards told him that his shirt--a black Le Tigre polo shirt with the words MIDNIGHT CRUZERS on the back--resembled clothing favored by gangs.

Not a Gang Member

Juan Hernandez said he told the guards that he was not a gang member. He said because he was sitting in the back of the van, guards could not have seen the inscription on the shirt--which he said referred to a bicycle club--when they ordered the group’s vehicle to pull aside.

The guards finally ordered the group from the park, Francisca Hernandez said. She said she demanded and received her $3 back. She said a Sheriff’s Department patrol car followed the van out of the parking lot to the freeway.

Deputy Detta Roberts, a Sheriff’s Department spokeswoman, said the department had no comment on the incident.

Sherrie Bang, a Magic Mountain spokeswoman, refused to comment on the pending litigation, but said the tough screening policy was instituted after six people were stabbed and 21 arrested in a 1985 melee at the park involving three San Fernando Valley gangs.

“Our intent is to identify troublemakers,” Bang said, adding that the screening policy was developed with the help of the Sheriff’s Department. She said the ACLU has not contacted Magic Mountain about the security measures.

Before it beefed up security after the 1985 stabbings, Bang said Magic Mountain was told by private attorneys and the district attorney’s office that it had the right to deny entrance to anyone perceived as a security risk.

Bang said the public has responded favorably to the park’s security policy. “The fact is we’ve done a good job,” she said. “In three years, we’ve not had a gang incident in the park.”

But Carol A. Sobel, an ACLU attorney, said the Hernandez case raises questions about the use of profiles developed by law-enforcement agencies to spot typical gang members. Such profiles, which list what police call typical gang dress or behavior, have been used in the recent crackdown on gangs by the Los Angeles Police Department, she said.

Sobel said the ACLU was “looking at the gang sweep cases” for possible civil rights violations.

The amusement park also was accused of discriminatory practices March 12, when nine black members of a Christian youth group from San Diego were searched before being admitted to the park. Magic Mountain denied that the incident was racially motivated.