D.A. Seeks Counsel of Arab-Americans

Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti, in a get-acquainted meeting with 20 representatives of Los Angeles County’s Arab-American community, promised Monday to be “extremely vigilant” against illegal spying on any minority group and said he wants to increase the number of Arab-American lawyers in his office.

Garcetti urged those attending at the Islamic Center of Southern California to advise him on what he can do to help bring their ethnic group into the mainstream.

But when the Los Angeles County district attorney characterized Arab-Americans as, in the past, “truly a silent group, much like gays and lesbians,” two people chided him gently.

Wasfy W. Shindy, deputy director of the county’s Environmental Toxicology Bureau, said that Arab-Americans long have had many contacts with the county supervisors and other local officials. And Maher Hathout, chairman of the Islamic Center, said: “We are too far out of the closet” to be considered silent.

Several people pressed him for details on how his office will cooperate with an inquiry by the San Francisco district attorney into alleged spying on Arab-Americans and others by the Anti-Defamation League, a Jewish group.

Garcetti said he would be “constrained in some of my answers” because he did not want to read his comments in the newspaper.

But he added, “There is not a person in this room who is not offended by the type of spying that has been alleged,” such as the possible illegal purchase of police undercover information.

When Garcetti was asked how many Arab-Americans he has on his staff of nearly 1,000 lawyers, he said he knew of two. But he estimated that there may be six to 10. He noted that through intermarriage some people of Arab descent do not have Arab surnames.

“I want more Arab-American lawyers,” the district attorney said. “But I can’t be locked into commitments of proportionality.”

Garcetti noted that while working as a deputy in the district attorney’s office earlier in his legal career, he organized a minority recruitment program. He noted that he is of mixed ethnic descent himself, with a grandfather who was Italian, a grandmother who was an Aztec Indian and a mother who was a Mexican national.

He grew up in a home where Spanish was spoken, his wife is Jewish and his children are uncertain how to describe themselves ethnically, Garcetti said.

“As district attorney, I have a responsibility to see there is justice in the whole community,” he added.