COMMENTARY ON HATE CRIMES : Close Encounter With Prejudice Fuels a Police Chief’s Concern : A Latino remembers what it was like growing up in L.A. County. The hurt has faded but not the insight into bigotry.

During the past year I have been alarmed by the number of hate crimes that have been reported to law enforcement agencies in Orange County.

It is disturbing to me for several reasons. First, I am a police officer and have been for 24 years (nearly 22 of them in Orange County). Second, I am a member of the Orange County Human Relations Commission, a group created to assist the citizens of this county in identifying human rights violations and combatting prejudice and racism aimed at all peoples.

However, the alarm I am feeling runs even deeper than those two reasons. I also happen to be Latino and recall too vividly incidents of bigotry experienced by me and my family while growing up in Los Angeles County during the ‘40s and ‘50s, and even early in the ‘60s.

I remember my parents having to renounce their ancestry because they would not be allowed to buy the home they desired if they told the seller they were Mexicans.

I also recall an Anglo woman yelling to me from her front door that they did not allow Mexicans on her street. I now wish I had been older than 6 years of age so I could have yelled back at her. But I was too young and didn’t think fast enough.

During my senior year in high school I asked a young lady I liked very much to attend our graduation-night dance. You can image my joy when she said yes. The next day she had her best friend tell me that she could not go to the dance with me because her father would not allow her to date a Mexican.

All these incidents happened many years ago, and like those years, the hurt and humiliation have faded. In fact, I can even look back and smile at the ignorance of all those people who were so filled with prejudice that it had to fog over their view of life, why this country was born, and why so many men and women--black, white, brown and yellow--gave their lives to maintain what our forefathers ordained in our Constitution and Bill of Rights.

When I became a police officer for Garden Grove in 1967, I memorized and was asked to recite the Law Enforcement Code of Ethics. One of the most significant lines in that code states, “I will never act officiously or permit personal feelings, prejudices, animosities or friendships to influence my decisions.” The first time I read the code I believed in those words and what they mean to me and to the people I am dedicated to serving. I still do.

I never believed that hate for another human being, such as we have witnessed in recent months, would ever show itself in Orange County. I thought that the most affluent county in California was above such behavior. I want to believe that these reported hate crimes are an aberration and are not truly reflective of the majority of the people who choose to live and raise their families in this county.

In fact, I do believe that it is a small number of narrow-minded individuals who lack the insight into the fear they instill in every person who wants to live the American dream and achieve success.

I am not a writer, but I know what a hate crime is and I know the fear and apprehension it can cause to the residents that I and all of law enforcement in Orange County have sworn to protect.

I cannot speak for my fellow chiefs of police, but I am willing to bet that every one of them is as concerned about this increase in hate crimes as are the men, women and children who have been victimized.

Law enforcement cannot fight this crime alone, the citizens cannot fight it alone, and the Human Relations Commission is powerless without help. But together we have the power, resources and strength to teach all these sowers of hate that Orange County will not tolerate intimidation of its residents in any form, and we will relentlessly prosecute those who find it necessary to commit these crimes.