Focus on Hate Crimes in Antelope Valley : FBI investigation and county supervisor’s request for study should root out problems

Two recent developments should help to ease African Americans’ suspicion that authorities are neglecting hate crimes in the Antelope Valley.

First the FBI confirmed it is investigating recent race-related incidents for civil rights violations. Another opinion on several specific encounters is an excellent idea.

And last week, County Supervisor Mike Antonovich proposed that the county Human Relations Commission lead a multi-agency study of the situation and propose action. Executive Director Ron Wakabayashi says that the commission is ready to start a systematic inquiry and that if the evidence confirms that hate crimes are growing in north Los Angeles County, to mount a broad campaign to deal with them.

Complaints that local skinheads have been terrorizing African Americans reached a climax after a Feb. 21 shooting outside Antelope Valley High School. Three white supremacist gang members have pleaded innocent to attempted murder and other offenses.

Prominent African Americans allege that the sheriff’s officers who police the area have downplayed several less-serious incidents, failing to identify obvious hate crimes as such. The local NAACP president insists that at least seven hate crimes have been committed since Jan. 1, yet the authorities say only one has been confirmed. The law enforcement figure of zero hate crimes for Lancaster and Palmdale in all of 1994, reported last week by the Human Relations Commission, seems worthy of scrutiny in the forthcoming study.

What is most important is not exactly how many acts fit the Penal Code’s definition of a hate crime. The critical need is for official recognition, starting with patrol officers, that racial crime deserves a high investigative priority because it is so harmful to maintaining a decent society and to the victims, many of whom have been schoolchildren.

In a 1991 UCLA Law Review article on hate crime laws, professor Susan Gellman discussed the “real and significant” damage caused by bigotry-motivated crimes. “Minority group children are particularly vulnerable,” she wrote, “exhibiting self-hatred early and coming to question their own intelligence, competence, and worth.”

Antonovich’s motion, due next week, should be non-controversial and the study should begin promptly.

The supervisor proposes to give the Human Relations Commission 60 days to develop a strategy “to eliminate the skinhead problem.” That is easier said than done in a free society that protects bad speech as well as good. But criminal actions can be vigorously fought, using the tools of diligent law enforcement, existing anti-gang programs and, if necessary, continuing education for local peace officers.