Past Time to Get Tough on Hate Crimes : * Rash of Recent Racial Attacks Reinforces the Need for Greater Countywide Efforts

The rash of racial incidents in Orange County, including last week’s brutal attack in Fullerton on a Chinese-American teen-ager by skinheads shouting racial slurs, demonstrates the need for a countywide examination of what more can be done to foster racial understanding. It also calls attention to the need for stronger laws against hate crimes.

Here are the recent incidents:

--Last Sunday, a group of 15 skinheads surrounded three teen-age boys in Gillman Park in Fullerton and demanded to know their racial views. The resulting fracas left one of the teen-agers, who is Chinese-American, unconscious. The other two youths sustained scrapes, bruises and cuts.

--On July 4, the word Jew was sprayed in shaving cream on the lawn of a Jewish man’s house in Rancho Santa Margarita.

--On June 30, a man driving a sports car ran four children off the road, then got out of his car and attacked a 12-year-old black boy while screaming racial slurs.

--On June 28, a black man waiting for a lift at John Wayne Airport was assaulted by a man shouting racial epithets.

The increase in hate crimes is not just a local problem. Because of concern around the state, there are now before the Legislature two bills, both deserving of support, that would increase the punishment for hate crimes and provide funding to the state Department of Justice to collect information on such crimes.

But no state law can legislate tolerance. It must come from understanding, which can be aided by community-based initiatives to eliminate fear and raise consciousness.

In Orange County, the county Human Relations Commission has led such efforts. For example, the commission recently completed a series of “living-room dialogues” in Costa Mesa. It is also working with schools, in particular with Sunny Hills High School in Fullerton, to increase ethnic understanding.

But the commission can only do so much. Individual cities need to have their own efforts. Santa Ana and Costa Mesa, for example, have volunteer human relations commissions. Also, as a result of the assault that occurred in Mission Viejo, the City Council quickly moved to form an anti-hate crimes task force.

Hate crimes are an ugly expression of ignorance, arising from fear of things that are different. Orange County must have a coordinated campaign against hatred, and make sure those who commit crimes are appropriately punished.