After Cross-Burning : Children’s Nazi Symbols Stir Up Newhall Residents

Next time, they’ll play cowboys and Indians.

That was the pledge Saturday from two Santa Clarita boys who briefly set off neighborhood alarm by leaving a Nazi flag and a painted swastika on a soccer field after playing a dirt-clod war game.

The soccer field is a block from where a cross was burned Thursday on the front lawn of a black family’s home.

The swastika and the handmade Nazi flag were discovered at dusk Friday by a 12-year-old boy who turned the flag over to leaders of the 271-family Hidden Valley Homeowners Assn.

Sensitive neighborhood leaders--who a day earlier offered a $1,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the cross-burner--quickly called Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies.

Investigators learned Saturday morning that the Nazi symbols were left over from children playing army, not older people’s racial intolerance.

“It was a 13-year-old boy playing war games with a 12-year-old friend,” said Deputy Dan Cox, a Sheriff’s Department spokesman.

“They had built forts and decided who would be the American and who would be the German armies. The 13-year-old painted the swastika on the soccer field grass and made the flag for his fort to mark his territory prior to a dirt-clod war game at noon on Friday.”

Friend Sees Fort

Later, the 13-year-old showed another friend the fort.

But when the third boy became angry over the swastika, the 13-year-old got scared and didn’t tell his friend that he’d made the flag, Cox said.

Detectives are convinced that there were no underlying motives for the flag or swastika ,and the 13-year-old does not face any charges, Cox said.

Sheriff’s Lt. Harvey Cantor said the swastika was apparently painted on the grass last Sunday and remained unnoticed for five days.

“The kids are scared stiff,” said Cantor, who would not reveal their identities. “Their parents are very upset.”

So were others in the Hidden Valley neighborhood, where the cross-burning at the home of Derrick Quals, 31, remained unsolved Saturday afternoon.

“Swastikas are sick. This is gross,” said Mike Stewart, 12, as he examined the soccer field where freshly spread bark chips covered the white spray-painted Nazi symbol.

“Look what the Nazis did to the Jewish people. I don’t care if they were playing. I used to play army, but I’d never do anything like this.”

The cross-burning was wrong too, said friend Bryan Smith, 12. “It was dumb. There’s no excuse for burning crosses. It’s stupid.”