‘I Had to Stop It,’ Says Guard Who Held Off Alleged ‘Skinheads’

Leonard Washington had just bought a six-pack of soda Sunday when he saw a group of tattooed, black-booted “skinheads” screaming at a Middle Eastern family in a supermarket parking lot in La Verne.

At first, he just watched the scene, which seemed like hundreds, maybe thousands of other noisy confrontations he has witnessed in his 15 years as a policeman and school security guard.

But then the 34-year-old Pomona resident saw a baseball bat flashing in the hand of one of the men wearing black boots.

“I stopped my car right away and jumped out,” Washington said Wednesday. “I knew I had to stop it right there.”

Washington, who dashed in and held off the attackers until police arrived, was hailed by authorities Wednesday for risking his own safety to help the family.

The four alleged Neo-Nazi skinheads pleaded not guilty Wednesday in Pomona Municipal Court to three felony charges stemming from what prosecutors called a racially motivated attack.

Scott Robert Wilson, 28, of West Covina; Timothy Robert Zaal, 25, of Glendora; William Killackey, 21, of Yorba Linda, and Amy Killackey, 19, of West Covina were each charged with one count of assault with a deadly weapon in the attack on the Middle Eastern man. They were also each charged with two counts of battery with the intent to interfere with the victims’ civil rights.

The felony battery counts are permissible under a new state law targeting so-called “hate crimes.”

“This cannot be treated as a simple battery, where people go to County Jail for a week or a month,” Dist. Atty. Ira Reiner said at a press conference Wednesday. If convicted, the four could be sentenced to a maximum prison term of 5 years and 4 months, Reiner said.

Prosecutors said the incident began when the defendants, sporting close-cropped hair “similar to (the) style worn by Neo-Nazi skinheads,” allegedly accosted the man and his wife, who was holding their 2-week-old son, as they were taking groceries to their car.

Mistakenly believing the family to be Jewish, the four taunted the Glendora couple, shouting, “White power!” and “Jew niggers, take your Jew baby home!”

Kicked to Ground

The man, Manochehr Sadri, 30, told the four to go away and was kicked to the ground by one member of the group, prosecutors said.

At the same time, another man was moving toward the fight with a baseball bat, Washington said.

“I got in front of him and just told him to back off,” said Washington, a slender 6-footer who figures he has stopped at least 200 high school fights as a school security guard with the Chino Unified School District.

The man put the bat down, but moments later another man and the woman entered the fight and repeatedly struck Sadri, Washington said.

Sadri’s wife, Farzenah, 28, was punched in the face by one of the men after she put the baby in their car and attempted to help her husband, Washington said. The child was not injured.

In the next few minutes, Washington said he had to stop one of the men from throwing a shopping cart at Sadri and another from getting the baseball bat again.

“I figured if I could just hang on for a few more minutes, the police will come soon,” he said.

The fight ended quickly after police arrived a few minutes later, he said.

“It was like a hyper day at school,” said Washington, who, before becoming a school security guard, served as a police officer in Pomona and Monrovia.

Deputy Dist. Atty. John Hayes, who filed the charges against the four, said of Washington: “He’s the hero in this case.”

Earlier police accounts that Washington had been struck and subjected to racial slurs were incorrect, Hayes said. Sadri and his wife could not be reached for comment.

Led Inside

Several members of the Jewish Defense League were outside the Pomona Courthouse on Wednesday as the four suspects were being led inside. Irv Rubin, national chairman of the league, shouted, “Nazi bastards!”

One of the suspects replied that he was not a Nazi, noting that he had no swastika tattoos.

Other members of the league shouted, “Never again, Nazis!” as the four defendants were taken from the courtroom after their arraignment later in the day.

The three male suspects were led into the courthouse through a back entrance, dressed as they had been at the time of their arrest, except that police had confiscated their boots as evidence. Wilson and Zaal were shirtless, displaying an array of tattoos that included a Confederate flag, but no Nazi insignia.

The district attorney’s office said in a statement that skinhead activity “is not common in this area of the San Gabriel Valley.”

However, Reiner said at the press conference that, “it’s just a spark, but you have to jump on it because a spark can turn into a fire, and then it gets out of control.”

In the ethnically diverse West Covina neighborhood where Wilson and Amy Killackey live together, friends who grew up with Wilson said they were shocked to learn that he has been charged in the attack.

Juan Valdez, who lives on the same street, said Wilson is not the type to pick a fight.

“You can say he started the fight, and I wouldn’t believe you,” said Valdez, who said Wilson and Amy Killackey have asked him to be their son’s godfather.

Ron Cordera and other friends said Wilson frequently changed his appearance, sporting mohawks to short hair to crew cuts.

Times staff writer Elizabeth Lu contributed to this story.