Man Arrested During Riot Says Police Stopped Him Because He Is Black : Courts: The CSUN student accused of a curfew violation plans to fight the charge. Public defender says his case exemplifies a judicial system gone awry.

More than 3,000 people were arrested on charges of violating the curfew during the Los Angeles riots, and the vast majority agreed to plead no contest, whether or not they thought they did anything wrong.

Cal State Northridge engineering student Anthony Winston does not intend to be one of them.

Instead of pleading no contest to breaking the dusk-to-dawn curfew in exchange for the usual sentence of probation and a requirement he perform about 10 days of community service, Winston would rather stand and fight.

He says he wants no blemish on his record to prevent him from getting a job when he graduates next May. But equally important to him, he is fighting for a principle: Police ignored hundreds of white people on the San Fernando Valley streets after dark and arrested him only because he is black, he contends.

The American Civil Liberties Union says it is considering including Winston in a lawsuit challenging the legality of the curfew, contending it was confusing, capriciously enforced and unfair to minorities.

Undeterred by the risk of a six-month jail sentence if he is convicted, the clean-cut Winston--a building manager of the CSUN Student Union--refused a prosecutor’s offer to reduce the charge to disturbing the peace, with a sentence of only a few days of community service.

Encouraged by his doting mother, he has persevered through what his lawyer describes as a time-consuming legal process that drives curfew defendants into throwing up their hands in exasperation and pleading no contest instead of going to trial. He has taken time off from classes and work to challenge the charges, making three court appearances, getting a different public defender assigned to him each time, with a trial still to come.

It is worth the effort, he said, because he is convinced he and two friends were singled out for arrest on a Thursday night in the riot period because of the color of their skin.

“It felt weird,” Winston recalls. “I was being stereotyped as a bad person by the system, just because I was black. . . . I didn’t do anything wrong. I’m not guilty.”

Those who know Winston, son of a working single mother in South Los Angeles, are not surprised.

“Certainly he is a young man with strong opinions, and I’m not saying that in a negative way at all,” said Fred Strache, acting vice president for student affairs at CSUN. “If he thinks he’s right, he thinks he’s right.”

Winston, 23, was arrested at 10:15 p.m. the second night of the riots--April 30, the first complete night of the curfew--as he and his friends were traveling west on Nordhoff Street near Tampa Avenue. They were heading home after attending a school-sanctioned peace rally and candlelight march held to let students and faculty express their feelings about the rioting.

Winston said he wasn’t aware there was a curfew in Northridge, especially since there were so many other cars on the street. And he said he had good reason for being on campus so late. As a Student Union building manager, he was working with CSUN officials and campus police, watching the marchers in an effort to ensure that the rally was peaceful and that rumors of a gunman near campus were only that.

Winston said police passed many carloads of white people before pulling over the car he was riding in. The driver, Winston and another passenger were black. All but one of the 10 or so police who eventually arrived on the scene, he said, were white.

“Once they looked in our car and saw us, that’s when they pulled us over,” Winston said. “That’s when it all started.”

Police recall the events of that night differently.

They said Winston and his friends were acting suspiciously, cruising back and forth outside Northridge Fashion Center mall with no reason to be there--in an area authorities said was rife with “rumors” that night that black youths intended to go on a looting spree.

“Regardless of whatever your reasons were, you were violating the curfew if you were out there,” said Los Angeles Police Officer Earl Cloud, one of two officers who arrested Winston and his friends Gary Hopson and Meifaith Mims.

“We gave leeway that night. If they had an excuse that was pretty good, I’d go for it,” said Cloud. “The stories we got from the three didn’t corroborate.”

Cloud said the conflicting information included the fact that the three did not appear to be headed toward Winston’s Canoga Park apartment. Cloud also denied pulling them over simply because they were black, but said there were reports that black youths had been harassing a guard at the mall.

He said he arrested “several” white people for curfew violations too, and that he is prepared to testify he had good cause to arrest Winston.

Winston said he and his friends did not “cruise” around that night, that they were just trying to get to Canoga Park by his usual route on main thoroughfares--not in a straight line.

Trial is set for Tuesday. The prosecutor, Deputy City Atty. Victor Kalustian, said mitigating circumstances could play a role in the case.

“If he has legitimate reasons for being out there, I’ll be willing to listen,” Kalustian said. “But I don’t have any comment on a case I haven’t heard.”

Winston’s current public defender, Marsha Kennedy, said Winston’s case is a perfect example of a judicial system gone awry, in which suspects are forced to endure great hardship if they want to contest the charges.

“People are exhausted--they keep coming and coming and the cases keep getting continued until they plead out,” Kennedy said. “It’s a terrible abuse, and he’s a prime example.”

Mims pleaded no contest to lesser charges of disturbing the peace, Kennedy said, after prosecutors agreed to reduce the charges from a misdemeanor to an infraction, which means it will not go on his record. Hopson’s case is continuing, prosecutors said, although Winston said his friend may plead no contest so he doesn’t have to keep returning to court.

Meanwhile, Winston--and his mother--are trying to get the case against him dropped before it gets to trial.

They called for help from the ACLU, which says Winston’s arrest is a good example of the reason it is challenging the curfew enforcement.

“He was unaware of the curfew and he was out on legitimate business,” said ACLU lawyer Silvia Argueta. “Had he been of another race, he might not have been stopped.”

Winston also has enlisted the aid of Strache and another prominent CSUN official, Selase W. Williams, chairman of the Pan-African studies department. Besides engineering, Winston majors in Pan-African studies.

In a letter to the court, Williams said Winston was a conscientious student who was on campus until after 9 p.m. that night because he had stayed for the rally, like hundreds of other students. Students were encouraged by faculty and student organizers to attend the event.

“On a personal note, I know Mr. Winston to be a hard-working student who holds a responsible position in the University Student Union,” Williams wrote. “I do not believe that he would have been involved in any illegal activity on the evening in question or any other evening.”

Strache also wrote the court to say Winston had come to him the evening of the rally, concerned about reports that an unidentified person was approaching the campus with a shotgun. Winston says that after conferring with Strache and campus police, he was given a portable security radio “so if anything broke out, I could call for police assistance.”

Winston said he didn’t leave campus until he returned the radio at about 10 p.m. He was arrested minutes later.

From the start, the curfew was the most controversial tool of a criminal justice system struggling to cope with the nation’s worst civil unrest of the century. The assembly-line processing of more than 3,000 suspects created intense pressure for accused curfew violators to accept plea bargains; only five of the 1,030 cases in downtown courts went to trial, and two of the defendants were acquitted.

In the San Fernando Valley, police made more than 500 curfew arrests, and they said many of the suspects were whites. Countywide, about 46% of those arrested for curfew violations were black and 45% Latinos.

In the San Fernando Valley, only a handful of cases have been contested and dropped, although many defendants have pleaded no contest to lesser offenses under plea bargains, said Deputy City Atty. Marty Vranicar, chief deputy in the Van Nuys Division of Municipal Court.

Vranicar said the curfew law is a strict liability statute, which means having a good reason for being outside might warrant a reduced sentence, but not an acquittal. Kennedy, Winston’s lawyer, disagrees. She said Mayor Tom Bradley’s April 29 directive authorizing the curfew allowed many people to be legally on the streets after dark.

Winston’s most vocal supporter has been his mother, a real estate broker, who insists her son would never get himself into trouble.

“I brought him up right, taught him his morals,” she said, as her oldest son fidgeted self-consciously nearby. “He really is a good boy. I know all mothers say that, but I’m very proud of him.”

As for Winston, he looks forward to the trial--if it comes to that.

“I just feel that basically they are trying to put something on my record to hinder me in life,” he said. “I am going to fight it, and bring my evidence and let the jury decide. I’m pretty confident that I’ll win.”