GLENDALE : Mayor’s Task Force Targets Hate Crimes

Glendale Mayor Eileen Givens will appoint a committee to study hate crimes in the city, an action prompted by vandalism at a local Armenian-American youth center earlier this month.

The Community Relations Task Force, as it is tentatively named by city officials, is scheduled to be approved by the City Council at its meeting Tuesday. Givens will select members of the committee.

“This doesn’t necessarily signal an alert, or signal we have a problem, that Glendale is a racist or bigoted city,” Councilman Larry Zarian said. “What it says is that there are some racists and bigots among us.”

Glendale City Manager David Ramsay said the purpose of the task force is “to recommend ways to proceed in the future.”

The task force is the result of a request by local Armenian groups for the city to investigate vandalism of the Homenetmen Armenian General Athletics Union and Scouts Building at 544 W. Broadway on May 14. Vandals painted swastikas and “Asian-looking” characters on the walls of the building and on several vans parked nearby. Police have no suspects in the incident.

Officials said the task force should use the Homenetmen incident as a jumping-off point to study the more subtle prejudice against Armenians in Glendale.

While statistics show hate crimes in Glendale have decreased this year, some residents still tend to misunderstand Armenian immigrants, who make up just under 20% of Glendale’s 195,000 residents, officials said.

“It seems to me that the basic sentiment of distrust is still there, even if the expression of these sentiments is becoming more civil,” said Chahe Keuroghelian, intercultural relations coordinator with the Glendale Police Department.

“This is something we need, since there is diversity in the city, since the city has so many newcomers,” Zarian said.

There were nine incidents classified by police as hate crimes in 1992, with a majority of these directed at Armenians. Six hate crimes were reported in 1993, with two directed at the Armenian population. Two hate crimes have occurred in Glendale so far this year, both aimed at Armenians, including the Homenetmen incident.

The other incident occurred in April when transient Edmond Antone, 45, attacked an Armenian, Sarkis Shavaladian, 70, shouting the Armenian word for “stupid” and other ethnic insults.