NAACP Leader Says Simi Racist Attack Was Only Latest in Series

The president of the Ventura County NAACP said Wednesday that a weekend vandalism attack on the home of a black Simi Valley family was but the latest in a string of racial incidents that have involved “skinheads.”

“There’s been a lot of other stuff going on in Simi Valley and in Ventura County,” said John R. Hatcher, the NAACP official. “In fact, we’ve been talking about this for the longest time.”

As examples of incidents in the past six months, Hatcher said black youths were beaten by skinheads on a beach in Ventura. He said police took no action after the beating. He also said that a cross was burned in Ventura and that white supremacist recruitment literature was distributed recently in Newbury Park.

The weekend vandalism attack left the Simi Valley home of Northridge Junior High School teacher Louis Boss and his family in shambles and defaced by skinhead graffiti. The attack evoked an outpouring of community support--including a plan to raise reward money by a local restaurant owner who claims his business also has been vandalized by skinheads.

Every Room Affected

Every room was affected and everything of value was destroyed during the weekend attack on the Niles Street home of the Boss family, police said. A swastika and the word “skinheads” were spray-painted on interior walls and a racial epithet was carved into the dining table, they said.

“It just totally infuriates me that someone would do something like that,” said Kelley Gilliland, the owner of a nearby Del Taco restaurant franchise who is also a Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department sergeant and a Simi Valley resident.

“I cannot understand how somebody can go in and be filled with so much hatred they would just totally destroy a family’s life . . . destroying all their possessions and mementoes and whatnot,” Gilliland said.

Boss, his wife, Ontee, and their four children discovered the wreckage at 3:30 a.m. Monday when they returned home from a trip.

Offers of food, clothing, cash and help to restore the house have poured in to the Police Department, according to Simi Valley Police Detective Anthony Anzilotti, who is handling the case.

Ontee Boss said Wednesday that neighbors also have visited, bringing expressions of support that have made an otherwise horrifying experience more tolerable.

Human Caring

“Human caring, in my opinion, is the most precious thing that there is,” she said as she sorted through the wreckage and tried to salvage items such as pictures and school diplomas.

“When a human being has violated you this way, and left you feeling really bad, then the only thing to me that can counter that is for another human being to come along and more or less show the caring side of human nature,” she said.

Gilliland said Wednesday that he was incensed by newspaper accounts of the attack and has suggested to the Simi Valley Chamber of Commerce that local businesses create a reward fund for information leading to an arrest. A chamber spokeswoman said the group’s board will probably discuss the idea at its Sept. 12 meeting.

Dishes and appliances were broken, drawers and cabinets overturned, brown paint poured into a piano and clothes dryer, and piles of clothing and other personal belongings strewn about the house by the vandals, police said.

“It was very thorough,” Anzilotti said. “Nothing was left untouched.”

Hatcher said the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People and two black churches in Simi Valley, where, according to census data, the black population is 1.1%, have scheduled a meeting for September to “mobilize and start monitoring” the countywide string of racial incidents. He said the group will monitor the Simi Valley police investigation and, if not satisfied, call for a federal investigation.

Police, meanwhile, have yet to find fingerprints or other physical evidence that might point to the culprits, Anzilotti said. He said police are focusing their investigation on the neighborhood and plan to interview at least one area youth with a criminal record.

Possible Lead

“I’m working on a possible lead,” he said, “but at this point it’s just someone that needs to be interviewed. There are no indications that he’s a suspect.”

Anzilotti said he believes that the vandals may know the Bosses because the family’s surname was spray-painted on a bathroom wall with other graffiti. But he acknowledged that the vandals may have found the name on household belongings or personal papers.

Neighbors and Gilliland also speculated that the suspects may be area youths because skinheads and gang members have been seen at a nearby shopping center.

Although Simi Valley Police Lt. Robert Klamser said earlier this week that skinheads have not previously been a problem in Simi Valley, Gilliland said skinheads vandalized his restaurant bathroom and frequented Sycamore Plaza, the mall at Cochran Street and Sycamore Drive where his franchise is located.