Black Family Finds Cross Burning on Their Lawn

A cross was burned on the lawn of a black Westminster family before dawn Thursday, and police say racist “Skinheads” may have been responsible.

Westminster police, who have joined with the city Fire Department in a task force to investigate the crime, said it may be connected with a rash of white-supremacist graffiti that has appeared in the neighborhood during the past two weeks. Moreover, Skinheads--youths who shave their heads and favor neo-Nazi regalia--have begun marching down neighborhood streets yelling “white power” and other racist slogans.

The Heisser family moved into a quiet block of Westminster’s Indian Village 10 years ago. And until Thursday, family members said, they had no indication that their presence was unwanted in the largely white area.

“The only thing I can think is it may be some sort of initiation rite where they tell them, ‘You will burn a cross on a black person’s lawn to become a member of this group,’ ” said Ted Heisser, who owns a commercial property management and maintenance company in Westminster.

His wife, Lillie, added: “We’ve had all people come through this house--black, white, pink, green, all of them. . . . I can’t think of anything that can justify (this).”

The Heissers’ daughter, Kristie, 19, discovered the cross when she was awakened at 4:35 a.m. by what she thought was the neighbor’s Doberman pinscher scratching the fence.

“That happens all the time, so I closed my eyes to go back to sleep and I noticed there was light in the room,” she said. “I opened my eyes and looked at the ceiling and it was orange and it was (waving), you know how a flame moves.”

She looked outside and saw the cross, about 3 feet high and 3 feet wide, burning on the front lawn. Moments after dialing 911, Kristie Heisser said, she heard an engine start and a car drive away. It was gone by the time she looked out the window.

Because such incidents are usually classified by investigators as vandalism or arson, police and human rights activists said it was impossible to exactly determine how prevalent “hate crimes” are in Orange County. There is a general belief, however, that they are on the rise.

“This is definitely neo-Nazi,” said Westminster Police Lt. Mike Ratliff, who is heading the investigation. “It is reminiscent of the kind of hate that we hoped would never surface again in this country.”

Added Hinda Beral, area director for the American Jewish Committee, “This is so horrible that the community, all of us, just has to let it be known that this is not acceptable in our community.”

Westminster police spokesman Tom Broderson said the cross-burning was the first in the city. Vicki Plevan of the Orange County Human Relations Commission said she could recall no other cross-burnings in Orange County, but a spokeswoman for Los Angeles County’s commission said there has been at least one cross-burning a year in that county since records have been kept, starting in 1980.

Ratliff said that although no suspects had been arrested as of late Thursday, there were indications that an unspecified number of Skinheads may have been involved.

Skinheads, according to several experts on white gangs, can generally be divided into those who dress in the extreme fashion to make a social statement and another, smaller, group that professes white supremacy.

Ties With Adult Groups

The latter group has recently expanded its ties with adult racist groups, such as Thomas Metzger’s White Aryan Resistance, based in San Diego County.

“I know Skinheads all over Orange County,” Metzger said in a telephone interview. “They are pro-white and so am I, so we are working together for working white people.”

Metzger said that his son, John, who heads the Aryan Youth Movement, has been working closely with Skinheads around the country. He refused to say how many Skinheads were associated with his organization.

“They are working against black crime, Mexican crime, Oriental crime, drugs,” Metzger said. “Neighborhoods are going to hell and they are mad and they are not going to take it.”

Metzger said he knew nothing about the Westminster incident and he denounced the cross-burning, saying: “If any of my people were caught doing such a thing, they’d have to answer to me. We don’t do business that way.”

Tom Heisser said that the cross burned on his front lawn was wrapped in cloth, held tightly by wire. Before the Fire Department arrived, it burned upright, then fell to the ground.

He said that the only time he has been threatened because of his color was when, as president of the Orange County chapter of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People in 1967-68, he was active in the civil rights movement. But even then, he added, he didn’t expect anything like a burning cross.

3 Black Families in Area

“Things are going back the other way,” Heisser said. “They are getting worse.”

The Heissers, who live on Shawnee Road, said they are one of three black families in the Indian Village neighborhood, a middle-class area of single-family homes.

“I could see, with us being black, if we had just moved here and them not wanting us as neighbors,” said Kristie Heisser. Then she shrugged.

“It’s like a bad dream,” she said.

Indian Village residents and police said that in recent weeks several neighborhood walls have been spray-painted with white-supremacist graffiti such as “SWP,” which Westminster police said stands for Supreme White Power.

Paul Cain, 16, who lives one block from the Heissers on Iroquois Road, has known the family since he was 6 years old.

“This is extremely disappointing,” he said. “They’re a really nice family and have never gotten in anybody’s way.”

Cain said there are several Skinheads living in the neighborhood who have been spray-painting the concrete block walls around residents’ homes. Most of them are about 16 or 17 years old, he said. Some of them have even spray-painted their own names, along with “White Power” and swastikas, he said.

Steve McNair, who moved into the neighborhood in January, said his wall was spray-painted in such a manner last week.

Epithets Yelled in Streets

“This used to be a very quiet neighborhood,” he said, adding that nearly every Friday and Saturday night, several Skinheads drive and walk through the streets yelling racist epithets.

“I’ve tried to get some people together to go to City Hall, but they’re afraid that the first time you start going to the police, you become a target,” he said. “Some (neighbors) aren’t capable of defending themselves, but I am.”

The Heissers said Thursday that they are not afraid and had already been on the telephone reporting the crime to civil rights organizations, government leaders and others.

A spokesman for the FBI in Orange County said the agency would not become involved in the case unless the Westminster Police Department believed it necessary. The Police Department’s Broderson said he did not think that would happen.

“Right now, it is a local incident,” he said.

But the Heissers believe it was much more.

“My civil rights have been violated,” Lillie Heisser said. “I’m not running away. When I tell you I’m going to be here, I’m going to be here. We could move, we have a choice, but we’re going to stay.”