Race Slurs Sprayed at 6 Locations in Glendale

Another rash of racial graffiti was discovered in Glendale last weekend, the most recent onslaught since the highly publicized visit to the city last November by avowed racist J.B. Stoner.

Glendale Police Agent Chris Loop said the graffiti, which included an anti-black epithet, swastikas, “White Power” slogans and a number of unintelligible symbols, were discovered mainly on driveways and sidewalks within one square block.

“It appears like they were connected,” Loop said. “The close proximity indicates that it was done by the same group or individual.”

So far, police have no suspects, Loop said.

The graffiti were sprayed with green and black paint at six locations on Burchett Street, Dale Avenue and Pelanconi Avenue, police said. More graffiti and a racist epithet were painted on the walls of a nearby animal hospital on San Fernando Road. Racist stickers were posted on a door of the hospital.

“Most of the stuff is rather cryptic and wouldn’t mean much to anyone,” Loop said.

Increase in Graffiti

Loop said the graffiti appeared to be the work of white supremacist “skinheads” and members of a neo-Nazi organization called the National Socialist White People’s Party, also known as NSWPP.

“With the prevalence of skinhead youth in the San Fernando Valley and throughout Southern California, we’ve seen an increase in this kind of graffiti,” Loop said.

Last June, Glendale police arrested six teen-agers on suspicion of terrorism and conspiracy after a search of their car uncovered white supremacist literature and stickers identical to those found on street lights, stop signs and store windows in Montrose a day earlier.

Early this year, an avowed racist and NSWPP member was convicted on a felony charge of vandalizing religious property for spray-painting anti-Semitic graffiti on walls and doors of a Glendale synagogue in December, 1987.

Joseph Dunlap, 33, a transient, was sentenced to two years and four months in prison.

Police arrested Dunlap in part because a witness saw his van parked near the synagogue on the morning of the attack. On Nov. 22, police had photographed the same van at a near-riot at the Glendale Holiday Inn that was sparked by Stoner’s visit.

More than 250 angry protesters gathered outside the hotel, chanting slogans and yelling at police who blocked their way into the hotel, where Stoner was meeting with about a dozen supporters to promote a white supremacist organization he leads. Stoner was convicted of the 1958 bombing that killed four young girls at a black church in Birmingham, Ala.

The day after the disturbance in Glendale, police discovered swastikas, anti-Semitic epithets and the letters “SS,” symbol of a military unit of the German Nazi Party, painted on a business near the hotel.

Two days later, more swastikas and racist graffiti were spray-painted on a south Glendale church.

No suspects were arrested in those incidents.