Outrage Grows Toward Racial Hate Crimes : Law enforcement: Increased media attention has brought to light a spate of violent county incidents stemming from bigotry, police officials say. They spoke at the first meeting of Mission Viejo’s task force.

Hate crimes have occurred in Orange County almost every month, but were largely overlooked by the public until a recent spate of violent racial incidents, police officials told a city hate-crime task force at its first meeting Monday.

Formed in reaction to the beating of a 12-year-old black youth in Mission Viejo in June, the task force asked county law enforcement experts to size up the hate-crime situation in Orange County.

Orange County Sheriff’s Capt. Andy Romero told the task force that both police agencies and the public are growing more outraged at crimes stemming from bigotry.

Police agencies “have brought hate crimes on a par with homicides, officer assistance calls and disaster responses,” Romero said. “These type of crimes are going along at the same pace . . . but it’s only been recently that people have become aware of hate crimes” because of increased media attention.

Romero released a list of 17 racial incidents reported to the Sheriff’s Department since January, including an anonymous note left last week on the windshield of a car owned by a Rossmoor man described in a police report as East Indian. The note read: “You have a very nice home and family--let’s keep it that way.”

Romero said the crudely drawn note was a “very subtle message that promises who knows what.”

Other recent cases included on the list were an assault on July 21 against a gay man in a Lake Forest bar, and an incident on July 6 at the Orange County Fair in which a white man yelled a slur at an Iranian man in a dispute over a parking space.

“When the Iranian returns to retrieve his car, he finds three flat tires and gouges on both sides of his car,” according the sheriff’s report.

The assault on the black youth in Mission Viejo, along with two other racial incidents elsewhere in the county the same week, prompted city officials to form the task force of two City Council members and three human rights leaders.

Task force member Rusty Kennedy, director of the Orange County Human Relations Commission, said the racial attacks “are just the tip of the iceberg that we can see. Very few people find their way to (police) to report these crimes.”

Many are afraid because “they are someone who is trying to fit in where they aren’t the norm,” Kennedy said. “Their fear is to be singled out.”

Romero said fear of retaliation also restrains victims from going to the police.

“We don’t have knowledge of . . . a hate crime where there was retaliation,” he said, “but that doesn’t mean it couldn’t happen.”

At future meetings, the task force will look at implementing a 24-hour hate-crime hot line that will allow victims or witnesses to remain anonymous. Councilman Robert D. Breton, a task force member, said the group should push for legislation that would force people convicted of hate crimes to pay reparations to their victims.

In addition, the group may recommend that the city hire legal counsel to prosecute any misdemeanor hate crimes committed in Mission Viejo.

But one of the most important actions taken by the task force is simply setting an example to other communities, Kennedy said.

“Mission Viejo is not sticking its head in the sand,” he said. “It’s easy for a community to turn their head the other way and just call law enforcement to deal with it.”

“The measures we’re talking about (in Mission Viejo) are preventive,” Kennedy added. “It sends a message that the leaders here won’t put up with hate crimes.

The mother of a 19-year-old gay Latino who she says was harassed by students at Capistrano High School told task force members their presence was badly needed in the community.

“There is so much hate everywhere,” said Elena Layland, a past president of the Orange County-based Parents and Friends of Gays and Lesbians. “It’s too bad we have to have a task force like this. But these are the times and unfortunately, hate is on the rise.”