Coalition Organized to Fight Hate Crimes

Alarmed by a drastic increase in hate crime reports, representatives of a broad mix of Los Angeles community groups on Wednesday announced the formation of a coalition to address what Mayor Tom Bradley called the “hatred that tears down the fabric of a united community.”

Assaults motivated by racial and ethnic animosity, gay-bashings and the recent vandalism of Jewish institutions in the San Fernando Valley are all dangerous symptoms of tension underlying Los Angeles’ celebrated cultural diversity, members of the new Hate Violence Response Alliance said.

Bradley, announcing the formation of the alliance at a City Hall news conference, disclosed that Los Angeles police recorded 432 hate crimes in 1991, a 58% increase over the 273 reported the previous year.

Although police officials suggest that hate crime reports are a flawed barometer of bigotry, Bradley and other community leaders said it is clear that escalating numbers at least in part reflect the hostile politics surrounding such disparate issues as Japan’s economic rivalry with the United States, the Persian Gulf War, tensions between blacks and Koreans in Los Angeles, and the gay rights and feminist movements.

Even as officials planned the news conference, Bradley noted, Valley Torah High School in North Hollywood was defaced Friday or early Saturday by vandals who painted swastikas and other anti-Semitic symbols. That was followed by similar incidents early this week at Cal State Northridge and a home in Studio City.

“That’s shocking. It ought to be alarming to everyone in this community,” Bradley said. “What we’ve seen in recent days clearly indicates that the plan we developed weeks ago is very timely.”

It was not immediately clear, however, how the new group sponsored by the city Human Relations Commission would differ from a similar organization, the Network Against Hate Crime, that was established by the county Commission on Human Relations in 1986.

The county alliance, which also includes some representatives of law enforcement agencies, has collected data on hate crimes, conducted education programs and lobbied for tougher laws and enforcement.

Despite those efforts, hate crimes countywide have shown a generally upward trend since statistics were first kept in 1980. Countywide statistics for 1991 are expected to be released next week, but they are already known to show a substantial increase, officials said.

Eugene Mornell, executive director of the county Commission on Human Relations, said he welcomed the new alliance. “We need all the help we can get,” he said.

Some community groups already belong to both coalitions. Mornell said the county network would welcome wider community participation.

Bradley noted that the city’s group has yet to develop any programs.

Of the hate crimes reported to police in 1991, 96 victimized African-Americans, 86 were against Latinos, 51 against Anglos, 40 against Asian-Americans and 24 against people of Middle Eastern descent. In addition, 75 anti-Semitic hate crimes were reported and 45 victimized gays or lesbians.

Police officials suggested that the statistics reflect a heightened consciousness among police officers and the community about laws addressing such crimes.

“What we’re having is not necessarily an increase in the number of incidents, but an increase in the number of reports,” said Officer Patrick Metoyer of the LAPD’s Criminal Conspiracy Section, which monitors hate crimes.

Joe Hicks of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference blamed the escalating violence on “an upsurge in jingoism and xenophobia and plain old racism.”

Tensions between blacks and Korean-Americans became so heated during the trial of a Korean-born grocer who killed a black teen-ager that two angry black men in Compton vented their hatred by assaulting an Asian woman who they assumed to be Korean, Hicks said. The woman was Thai.

Members of the black, Latino, Asian, Arab and Jewish communities spoke at the news conference. The organizations represented include the Anti-Defamation League, the Asian Pacific Legal Center, the NAACP, the ACLU, the Japanese-American Citizens League, the Urban League, the Campaign for Human Immigration Reform in Los Angeles, the Gay and Lesbian Community Service Center and the Mayor’s Office for the Disabled.

Roger Coggan of the Los Angeles Gay and Lesbian Community Services Center acknowledged that even some members of the alliance may harbor homophobic sentiments on religious grounds.

But, he added: “The mere fact we’re here together is more than good PR. It sends a message that we’re all in this together.”

The news conference was also attended by Rabbi Avrohom Stulberger of Valley Torah High School and several of the school’s students.

Stulberger expressed hope that Los Angeles could experience the sense of unity the vandalism has inspired at the school. The school’s 200 Jewish students--who hail from Russia, Hungary and Iran as well as the United States--have a new sense of unity and pride in their heritage, he said.

“It’s ironic,” Stulberger said. “It’s horrible what happened. But we’re stronger than ever before.”