‘Hate Crime’ Detectives’ Mission Sometimes Impossible : Prejudice: When the motive is purely bigotry and not a personal dispute, the crime is not likely to be solved, investigators say.

After a bomb threat was called into a synagogue in Tujunga last month and then swastikas were found etched on the temple’s doors, the cases were handed to a relatively new breed of Los Angeles police detective--a “hate crime” investigator.

From graffiti to terrorist-style threats to actual physical assaults, so-called hate incidents are now classified and investigated by police according to motive--bigotry--rather than by offense. One detective in each police division handles all the cases. And police say the procedure, begun in late 1988, makes them more responsive to a problem that is of high public concern.

“I think that when you have one person working all of them, you can cross-reference and make connections between crimes,” said Detective Gaspar Oliveras, who investigates hate crimes in the northeast San Fernando Valley. “You have a better understanding of what is happening in an area.”

“We want one person to keep track of what’s going on,” said Deputy Chief Ronald A. Frankle, who is in charge of the department’s policies for dealing with hate crimes. “If you assign resources like a hate crime is just another vandalism, victims don’t appreciate that. So we are leaving no stone unturned.”

Though current procedures are nearly 2 years old, the department is still refining how it handles hate crimes. Crime reports from previous years are currently being reviewed so a more precise measure of the problem in the city can be made. The department also expects to establish a reward fund and telephone tip line this summer specifically for hate crimes.

The hate crime detectives investigate all crimes in which people are victimized because of their race, religion, ethnic background, sex, lifestyle or disability. Though the detectives do not work full time on crimes rooted in bigotry, such cases take priority when they occur.

Police said the benefits of the consolidation of the cases is that information on crimes and suspects is easily exchanged among the specialists, and perhaps most importantly, the victims get a better sense that their government is concerned about threats against them.

“The psychology of the crime is that the victim is likely to feel much greater impact than with other crimes because he feels he has been targeted as a member of a group,” Frankle said. “Therefore it’s very important that we take significant note of hate crimes, even if the actual act might be a minor vandalism.”

In contrast, the Los Angeles Police Department system differs from the methods used by the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department. Hate incidents are assigned by type of offense to deputies with expertise in the particular crime.

Last week, when a Sylmar widow found her new house in Palmdale had been broken into and swastikas, satanic slogans and religious slurs were scrawled on the walls, the case was assigned to gang detectives. Because of their knowledge of local gangs, the deputies were able to trace the graffiti to a particular group. Two members of a skinhead gang were arrested for the break-in but later released while detectives sought enough evidence to charge them.

Frankle, head of Los Angeles police operations in the Valley, said the city in recent years has averaged about 250 hate crimes a year, with nearly half occurring in the Valley. Most often, he said, the incidents are directed against blacks and Jews.

Police officials said it is hard to determine if hate crimes are increasing or decreasing in the Valley because complete statistics were not kept before 1989. Previously, the crimes were classified according to offense, such as vandalism or assault. The department now has a specific classification for hate crimes, and officials say it has become more diligent in identifying and investigating these incidents. Crime reports now carry a box to be checked by an officer if bigotry is a suspected motivation.

In 1989, the first year complete statistics were kept for the Valley, 113 hate crimes were reported with the most--32--in the West Valley. The fewest occurred in the North Hollywood Division, where eight crimes were reported.

In the Foothill Division, which includes much of the northeast Valley, there were 29 hate crimes reported in 1989. Oliveras, the division’s hate crimes specialist, said he has had 15 cases referred to him this year.

The most recent cases involved a series of incidents at Verdugo Hills Hebrew Center. On May 11 and 16, telephone bomb threats were called to the center. On May 12, anti-Semitic slurs were scrawled on plaques at the synagogue’s entrance, and swastikas were etched into the door. Temple windows were also broken at the center.

“There is an ongoing series of problems there,” Oliveras said. “We are working with the people there, and we hope to catch the vandals.”

But so far there are no suspects. The case illustrates the difficulties in investigating hate crimes. Those involved in crimes directed against specific religious or ethnic groups are usually unknown to the victims and therefore hard to identify.

“You try to trace the physical evidence,” Oliveras said. “You work with informants. People often brag about what they’ve done. Sometimes it’s just plain luck.”

Detective Fred Duitsman, who investigates hate crimes in the West Valley, said true hate crimes--incidents motivated purely by bigotry and not a personal dispute--are not often solved with arrests.

“It’s awfully difficult to solve these crimes,” he said. “In most of them, the victim and suspect don’t know each other. Many of these are phone call threats. No one sees the suspects.”

Duitsman said he is investigating a case this year in which a white man walked up to a black man and said he did not like blacks and tried to stab him. The victim was slightly injured but managed to run away.

“The victim didn’t know this guy or what he could have done to bring this on,” Duitsman said. “He was so shocked by what happened he wasn’t even sure he could identify the guy even if we could find him.”

Duitsman said that most often the cases that result in arrests are not true hate crimes. Detectives find a connection between the suspect and victim and learn the motivation for the hate crime is usually a personal dispute--such as a traffic or neighborhood argument--and not bigotry. The racial or religious slur is an offshoot of the dispute.

Duitsman said 35 incidents have been referred to him this year as possible hate crimes, but he said less than half will be classified as such after investigations.

“You have to be very careful in how you classify these incidents,” he said. “A swastika in and of itself was considered a hate crime. But it is now routinely used by some gangs in their graffiti. If it is found on a temple or a Jewish person’s garage, that is a hate crime. If it is found on a light standard on a street, it doesn’t have to be.”

HATE CRIMES

Hate crimes reported in the San Fernando Valley in 1989.

Crimes Police Division Reported West Valley 32 Foothill 29 Devonshire 24 Van Nuys 20 North Hollywood 8 TOTAL 113