Beach Attack Shocked Musician : Ventura: Police classify white youths’ stabbing of the African American as a racial assault.

As musician Leonard Boles sat with a friend on the swings next to the Ventura Pier, he remarked to her how safe, quiet and mellow the city seemed.

Minutes later, the 37-year-old Ventura resident, holding his hand to his stomach to stop the bleeding from a stab wound, was trying to flag down a car to take him to the hospital.

Ventura police suspect the Monday night attack by two teen-agers, whom they said “reflected a skinhead appearance and mentality,” was racially motivated.

From his hospital bed at Ventura County Medical Center on Tuesday, Boles, who is African American, was groggy but cogent as he recalled the incident. “We were just sitting on the swings, where children play,” he said. “Then these guys came up and started talking about white power, and this is ‘their territory.’ ”

Ventura Police Sgt. Bob Anderson said detectives are investigating the stabbing as a hate crime, which appears, he said, to be an isolated incident.

Isolated or not, the attack shocked Boles, who plays guitar in a local reggae band called Conscious Souls. “I’m just surprised, more than anything,” Boles said. “It was just so strictly racial.”

Jamie Thompson, who was with Boles when he was assaulted, said she felt outrage as well as shock. “I feel disgusted. Really disgusted with the youth in Ventura,” said the 21-year-old Ventura resident, who is white. “They (the attackers) were like animals. They were very aggressive, almost primal.”

Fellow band members and friends said it was ironic that Boles would be the object of such an attack because in his music he espouses peace and understanding among all races.

“He would be the last person out of all the people I know that this would happen to,” said Tommy Walker, bass player for Conscious Souls and a close friend of Boles for six years. “He’s a very peaceful, generous, helping man. He’s like a brother to me and he’s always trying to help people out any way he can. He tries to spread a message of unity.”

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The message of unity and acceptance is also one of Conscious Souls’ strongest themes, Walker said. “We try to spread a message to all people of all colors to live in harmony.”

Ventura Mayor Tom Buford said the racist attack demands a strong response from the community.

“I think people have to stand up to that (racism) as soon as there is anything that smacks of (racism) at all,” he said.

The Ventura promenade, which runs from the county fairgrounds to the pier, became the focus of police attention three months ago when a jogger was shot and another man fought off a would-be carjacker. The attacks occurred within days of each other.

At just about 9 p.m. Monday, Thompson said, she and Boles were swinging and talking when five people approached, two males and three females, all in their late teens. The harassment began, she said, as soon as Boles turned his head to look at the approaching youths, who then noticed that he is African American.

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Though Thompson knew one of the girls casually, and tried to defuse the situation, the incident grew more tense and incendiary. “The girls seemed to be giggling about it all,” she said.

Boles said that to avoid exacerbating the confrontation, he offered to leave. But, he said, the youths became increasingly aggressive. He fled, then stopped and fought briefly with them, he said. Then he tried again to flee, but the two overtook him and stabbed him.

As Thompson raced toward Harbor Boulevard after her friend, the two males were walking toward her, almost gloating, she said. “They told me, ‘You’d better get your . . . boyfriend, because he’s bleeding.’ ”

Boles and Thompson flagged down an elderly couple in a car, who drove them to the hospital.

Police were called to a location near San Jon Road, where they questioned and later released the three females and the one male. They are now looking for the second male suspect.

“It may not be for a week, but I expect an arrest,” Anderson said. “We’re attempting to locate (and detain) the alleged stabber in the case.”

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Despite the stabbing and the previous two incidents, police said Tuesday that crime has not increased markedly along Ventura’s beachfront.

At the pier Tuesday afternoon, some people said they still believed the beach is safe. “I didn’t think twice about coming here today,” said Vicky Rodriguez, 35, of Oxnard.

After the shooting and thwarted carjacking, officers temporarily stepped up foot patrols along the beachfront. But special patrols are no longer assigned to the area.

And Boles said he will make no significant changes in his life once he is released from the hospital, which should be in two to three days. “It may be wishful thinking, but I’m hoping to play by Saturday,” he said. “And I have the prayers of my friends.”

Times staff writer Julie Fields contributed to this story.