THOUSAND OAKS : 2 Boys Are Arrested Over Racial Threat

Two Thousand Oaks boys were arrested on suspicion of making a racial threat after they allegedly shouted a racial taunt at a teen-age girl and brandished a gun at her mother, authorities said Thursday.

The incident occurred shortly before midnight Wednesday at the Knolls apartment complex on Conejo Canyon Court, Ventura County Sheriff’s Sgt. Keith Parks said.

He said a 16-year-old girl who lives in the complex was playing tennis with a visiting girlfriend, also 16, at a court in the complex. Both girls are black.

As they played, a teen-age boy living in a nearby apartment and a visiting friend were barbecuing on the boy’s patio. The boys, 16 and 17, are both white.

According to the girls, the boys shouted at them to shut up and used a pejorative racial term, Parks said.

The girls reported the incident to the mother. “The mother said she was amazed because she had not had a problem at the apartment complex in the year she had lived there,” Parks said.

With the girls in tow, the mother approached the boys on the patio and questioned them about the incident, Parks said. After a heated exchange of words, the mother and two girls turned to walk away and one of the boys pulled out a long-barreled handgun and leveled it at them, he said.

Two of the victims reported hearing the weapon clicking as if the trigger were being pulled, Parks said.

Police arrested the boys after a foot chase and recovered a .30-caliber handgun from the patio. The cylinder had been removed but three live rounds were still in the cylinder, Parks said.

The boy who lives in the apartment was accused of making a racial threat, a felony, and was cited and released to his parents.

The other boy was arrested on suspicion of two additional felonies: assault with a deadly weapon and possessing a gun with an altered serial number. He was taken to Juvenile Hall.

Because the crimes being alleged are felonies, the case will be turned over to the district attorney’s office for review, police said.