White-Power Vandals Hit Simi School a Second Time

Swastikas, racist graffiti and white supremacy slogans have been found spray-painted on Simi Valley High School walls, the second such incident at the school in the past two weeks and the fourth in the city since May.

The graffiti, found last week by a school custodian arriving for work, included “various anti-black and white supremacy type slogans, as well as several Nazi symbols and a reference to the Ku Klux Klan,” according to a police report.

The incidents began when swastikas were spray-painted in May on Temple Ner Tamid. No arrests have been made. Police Chief Lindsey Paul Miller said it was too early to tell whether the crimes are related.

“We don’t know yet if we’re going to have a pattern develop,” Miller said. “I believe kids feel they can get attention by painting swastikas and those things, so it may be too early to know whether we have a trend.”

Simi Valley police are still investigating the vandalism in August of the Niles Street home where Louis Boss, a black teacher at Northridge Junior High School, lives with his wife and four children.

In the incident, which caused an estimated $20,000 damage, belongings were systematically destroyed and racial epithets were spray-painted on the house’s interior walls and scratched into a dining room table, police said. The graffiti included the word “skinheads.”

One of the Boss children is a sophomore at Simi Valley High School, but authorities drew no connection between the attack on the student’s house and the vandalism at the high school on Thursday.

Assistant Principal Anita Davis said two swastikas also were found painted on the school’s tennis courts Oct. 12. According to a police report, the words “white power” and numerous swastikas were spray-painted on a tennis court floor.

The graffiti in both incidents were quickly painted over, Davis said. Administrators have been speaking to students about the vandalism and inspecting bathrooms and lockers for similar graffiti in the hope of turning up leads but nothing has surfaced so far, she said.

“All I know is, when I talk to students here, the majority have the same feeling,” Davis said. “They’re disgusted by the events that took place during the summer. . . . I’ve never talked to a student who even in a flippant way would endorse something like that.”

Swastikas Scratched Into Door at Temple

In an apparently unrelated incident, Burbank police said Monday they were investigating a case of anti-Semitic vandalism at Temple Emanuel in the 1300 block of North Glenoaks Boulevard.

Sgt. Don Goldberg said three swastikas and the word “Nazi” were found scratched in the outside door of a maintenance room at the temple on Monday morning. On a street sign in front of the temple was a swastika, along with a sticker that read “Safe White Schools,” he said. No arrests were made and police did not believe the vandalism was the work of any organized group.

“It appears to be the act of a bunch of moronic kids,” Goldberg said. “It is a serious act of vandalism. But it doesn’t appear to be the work of any white power organization.”