Racial Tensions Over South L.A. Jobs Grow : Employment: Latinos vow to resist efforts by blacks to shut down construction sites where no African-Americans are working.

In a sign of escalating racial tensions over employment opportunities in riot-torn South Los Angeles, Latino activists said Tuesday that they will deal aggressively with attempts by black demonstrators to shut down construction sites where there are no blacks at work.

The Latino group, led by N.E.W.S. for America’s founder Xavier Hermosillo and Father Juan Santillan, pastor of an East Los Angeles Catholic church, described an incident earlier this month in which two Latino laborers and their Anglo foreman were attacked and chased off a construction job by about 35 black men, who vandalized the work site and spray-painted “Equal Rights” on the foreman’s truck.

Police responded but the men fled and have not been identified or arrested.

During a City Hall news conference, Hermosillo said he and other Latino leaders--who called the incident a “terrorist attack”--were offended that it was not immediately denounced by elected leaders, including Councilwoman Rita Walters, whose field office is across the street from the construction site near Main Street and Vernon Avenue.

“The attack is no different that if the Ku Klux Klan surrounded a crew of black workers, rushed in 35-strong and drove them away with racial names saying they don’t belong in a certain part of the city,” said attorney Rees Lloyd, who vowed to file a civil rights lawsuit against the men if they are identified. “If that happened against black workers, there would be citywide outrage.”

The group also took aim at Brotherhood Crusade leader Danny Bakewell, who has initiated a highly publicized campaign to close down South Los Angeles construction sites that do not employ black workers. His demonstrators have marched twice on building sites and drove off workers, many of them Latino.

While not directly linking Bakewell’s organization to the attack, Hermosillo and Lloyd said his campaign tactics may have incited others to violence.

“The moral responsibility for these kinds of attacks lies with Danny Bakewell and Mayor Tom Bradley, who has advocated protests,” Lloyd said, as a crowd of Latino senior citizens and members of an Eastside youth group chanted “Basta! Basta!” (Enough! Enough!)

A spokesman for the Brotherhood Crusade said Tuesday that Bakewell was unavailable to comment on the incident. The spokesman, Ralph Sutton, also declined to comment.

Bradley spokesman Bill Chandler said the mayor was unaware of the confrontation. “The mayor does not condone any act of violence against any group. In this case the mayor would expect the police to fully investigate and would be very interested in knowing the results of the case,” Chandler said.

Councilwoman Walters, who learned about the incident the day it happened, said she did not take a public position against it because “it seemed to me that the proper vehicle to address this was to call the police.”

Underlying the conflict of the moment is the question of who gets hired to rebuild the estimated 500 structures that were destroyed in the April riots.

Hermosillo said his group has organized “sting teams” of undercover construction workers with video cameras who will monitor work sites that employ Latinos in an effort to identify demonstrators who turn violent. They are also offering a $1,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of the attackers.

During the July 9 incident, about eight to 10 carloads of black men, most in their early 20s, converged on the work site, he said. Several approached foreman Charlie Gruver, who is white, and asked if the workers were unionized and if any blacks were working for him.

When Gruver, owner of C.W. Gruver Construction, replied “no,” the exchange turned violent.

“They threw cement bricks through my truck window. It was very ugly,” Gruver said.

Vincente Garcia, 32, said he was bending over a ditch when he was suddenly surrounded by black men who chased him off the site. He could not understand the English words hurled at him. “All I could think about was the riots, the violence.” he said.

Ironically, the site where the attack took place was new construction not related to the riots. But the campaign among minority groups to acquire new employment opportunities in post-riot South Los Angeles is sparking conflict on the streets.

“It’s important to establish here that the fundamental issue has more to do with long-term discriminatory practices of the construction industry,” said James Johnson, director of UCLA’s Center for the study of Urban Poverty.

“Latinos and blacks both share a common fate--poverty,” Johnson said. “They are both competing for the same dry bone and it engenders competition and conflict.”