FBI Won’t Investigate Attack on Girl, 15

FBI officials announced Thursday that they have reviewed the case of a 15-year-old Garden Grove cheerleader who was beaten and slashed last month in what some activists allege was a racially motivated incident and have decided not to pursue an investigation.

The news dealt a blow to the victim’s family, which had called for a federal inquiry into the case, alleging that the Orange County Sheriff’s Department had mishandled the investigation.

FBI spokesman Fred Reagan said the bureau decided not to investigate the case because it does not fall within its jurisdiction.

“The facts of the matter have been studied in some detail and the determination has been made that there was no apparent violation of federal law within FBI jurisdiction,” Reagan said. “This appeared to be a matter of mutual combat between private parties.”

Amber Jefferson, whose father is black and mother is white, was beaten with a baseball bat and slashed with a shard of glass outside a Stanton apartment complex during a brawl Aug. 6 among more than a dozen people.

Amber and her friends allege they were attacked by a group of white men and teen-agers wielding baseball bats because they were black and Latino. Some of the assailants maintain that the incident was not about race but rather was a fight between two girls over a boy that escalated into violence.

As part of a campaign to turn up public pressure on Orange County authorities investigating the case, a coalition of civil rights groups and Hollywood celebrities on Thursday repeated their demand that arrests be made in the attack.

Echoing statements made at a news conference last week in Yorba Linda, organizers criticized the Orange County Sheriff’s Department’s handling of the case. To further press that point, community groups from Los Angeles and Orange counties have organized a candlelight vigil for 4 p.m. today near the Sheriffs’ Department in Santa Ana.

Mark Ridley Thomas, executive director of the Los Angeles Chapter of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference (SCLC), said his group may ask the U.S. Justice Department to intervene if Orange County prosecutors fail to file charges. Ridley and other community leaders contend that the Sheriff’s Department has failed to pursue the case aggressively because of the victim’s race.

Besides the SCLC, other organizations that attended the press conference were the American Civil Liberties Union, Multiracial Americans of Southern California and the Anti-Defamation League of the B’nai Brith.

The Sheriff’s Department presented the results of its investigation to the district attorney’s office last week with the recommendation that charges be filed against 12 people on both sides. Recommended charges against five of Amber’s friends range from fighting to assault with a deadly weapon; recommended charges against seven people in the other group include fighting, assault with a deadly weapon and participating in a hate crime.