Burning of Crosses in County Jail Confirmed

Sheriff Sherman Block said Wednesday that an internal investigation has confirmed reports that two crosses were burned in the Los Angeles County’s Men’s Central Jail during the last two years.

”. . . Now it’s a matter of establishing culpability and taking appropriate action,” Block said. “I would say within 30 days we should have everything finalized.”

Block limited his remarks at a monthly meeting with reporters to official confirmation that crosses had been burned. He avoided comment on possible motives and the identification of those thought to be responsible. Any deputy found responsible faces discipline ranging from an oral reprimand to discharge and possible criminal charges, he said.

Jailers who asked to remain anonymous told The Times months ago that white deputies had twice set crosses afire. The first cross, the sources said, was burned in a corridor as members of the Bloods street gang were filing out for breakfast one morning in 1987. The second was burned in January, 1988, in an area housing Crip gang members, they said.

Two black inmates, Roosevelt Tellis and Daryl Ransom, said in a jail interview that they thought they had been “invaded by the Ku Klux Klan or some sort of white supremacy party” when a cross was burned in their module. “We filed complaints but they were ignored, and we were threatened and told to leave it alone,” they said.

Charges that crosses had been burned in quarters housing black street gang members first surfaced at a county Civil Service Commission hearing in early January.

On Wednesday, the sheriff said the investigation took months because of the need to interview inmates who are spread throughout the state prison system, or back on the street.

Block insisted that the cross-burnings were not the work of Ku Klux Klan sympathizers, as charged in a federal lawsuit filed by a former probationary sheriff’s deputy.

Those allegations were contained in the suit brought by Eugene A. Harris, 22, in March.

Harris charged that the Sheriff’s Department had failed to properly investigate the cross-burnings and had allowed supervisors to press “trumped-up” charges that led to his resignation. He was accused of taking a candy bar and hairbrush from jail inmates. Harris is seeking reinstatement.