Third Suspect Named in Racial Stabbing Case

Police named a third suspect Tuesday in what appears to be a hate crime that critically injured a 20-year-old Native American who was stabbed 27 times near a Huntington Beach lifeguard tower.

Shannon Martin, 23, of Huntington Beach, was charged with conspiracy and accessory to the crime after he allegedly retrieved the knife used in the stabbing from a bush near the lifeguard tower, prosecutors said.

Martin appeared in court Tuesday with Erik Anderson, 20, a self-described klansman from Huntington Beach who is accused of repeatedly plunging a hunting knife into a stranger with so much fury that he accidentally stabbed a friend in the eye, police said. A 17-year-old juvenile also is being held in connection with the near-fatal stabbing.

Moments before Saturday’s attack, police said Anderson approached the 20-year-old victim on the beach and asked whether he believed in “white power.”

Anderson’s 44-year-old father, Robert Anderson, described his son as a troubled young man who had dropped out of school at 18, had a hard time finding a job and was homeless for a while.

“What happened was that he bounced around a lot of schools,” Robert Anderson said Tuesday. “He was kicked out, some of it was his own fault.”

Erik Anderson had grown frustrated with his life in Huntington Beach and moved to Bakersfield, where he lived for about a year before moving back home just after Christmas.

Robert Anderson said he believes his son became deeply involved with white supremacist groups, possibly including the Ku Klux Klan, during those months in Bakersfield.

“Whatever views he gained are not ours,” the father said. “This is tearing the family up and hurting me and my wife.”

On Tuesday, Robert Anderson went to the Westminster courthouse for his son’s arraignment on charges of attempted murder and commission of a hate crime. The hearing was postponed until Feb. 23. Anderson also face an unrelated misdemeanor charge of marijuana possession, according to court records.

Martin’s arraignment also was postponed until Feb. 23. He has five previous drug-related misdemeanor convictions and in 1994, served 20 days in jail for receiving stolen property and forging checks.

If convicted, Martin faces a maximum of three years in jail and Anderson faces a maximum of life in prison with a four-year enhancement for a hate crime. The 17-year-old juvenile, also accused of attempted murder, is scheduled for arraignment today.

The 20-year-old victim was reported in stable condition Tuesday at UCI Medical Center in Orange, his 16-year-old sister said.

“He’s doing really good,” she said. “He’s sitting up and talking and everything.”

Police and authorities monitoring hate crimes say the profile of Erik Anderson fit that of a racist skinhead. In downtown Huntington Beach, where the stabbing occurred, skinheads have become a gnawing problem for law enforcement and merchants in downtown Huntington Beach.

But the reach of their violence doesn’t end there.

Last year, Orange County Human Relations Commission reported scores of hate-related incidents and crimes, many of which involved white supremacists who espouse an ideology similar to Anderson.

In general, white supremacists tend to be young white men, often from dysfunctional families or experiencing major difficulties in life, said Rusty Kennedy, the commission’s executive director.

The groups are attractive because they “play on people’s fears toward outsiders,” Kennedy said. Skinhead gangs initially formed in England in the 1970s and their ideology was imported to the United States in the 1980s, according to the Alabama-based group Klanwatch, which monitors hate groups in the nation.

There are about 3,500 racist skinheads in 40 states, according to the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith estimates. The United States has the fourth-highest skinhead concentration, behind Germany, Hungary and the Czech Republic.

“They’re not territorial and their reach is broad,” said Kennedy, whose group tracks hate crimes countywide.

In January 1995, five skinheads repeatedly kicked and punched a 16-year-old La Palma girl apparently because she was dating a Native American, according to the commission. Several months later, workers at a Mission Viejo computer company found a message on their answering machine from someone who threatened to “blow up” the business unless an African American employee was fired, Kennedy said.

Fliers with swastikas and other hate messages have been found stuffed in food packages and school lockers, he said.

The attacks have turned deadly. In September 1994, a black man was shot to death outside a McDonald’s restaurant in Huntington Beach. Two skinheads were arrested and are awaiting trial.

Saturday’s attack culminated an evening of racially motivated harassment, Johnson said.

Witnesses told police they saw Anderson and his friends accost a Latino couple, an Asian woman and a Jewish woman before the stabbing.

Police officers patrolling the downtown area have detained Anderson--a pet shop employee at Westminster Mall--about 10 days ago for questioning about race related incidents, but he was not arrested.

“Most of the time, it’s not anything major. . . . This is not a typical case,” Police Lt. Dan Johnson said of skinheads who come to the area. “They usually just make it very uncomfortable for people to enjoy the pier.”

Robert Anderson said he was first surprised to learn of his son’s involvement in white supremacy groups because of his son’s ethnic backgrounds. Anderson’s father said he is part American Indian, Swedish, Welsh and French.

“He sort of has a Heinz 57 background, if you know what I mean,” the father said.

Anderson’s father said his son had been on the fringes of hate groups but had become more active during the last year, when he began wearing T-shirts “typically worn by skinheads.”

“I was concerned because I knew he knows people like that,” the father said. “I remember addressing it with him. First, I told him, if you get involved with anybody like that, you’ll have one more person telling you what to do. Secondly, I said, ‘Why do you want to get involved, especially with your background?’ ”

On Sunday, Robert Anderson said, he returned home to a “ransacked” house. During the investigation, police had seized his son’s clothing and a planning calendar as evidence.

“He’s not a bad kid,” the father said. “Last year, he gave us a Christmas card telling us how bad he feels because he couldn’t afford to give us presents. That was one of the best things he has done for us.”

Anderson, who earned a general equivalency diploma more than a year ago, spoke to his father briefly over the phone since the arrest, telling him that he was upset and worried.

“No matter what happens, we’re always here for our children,” Robert Anderson said.

Times correspondent Enrique Lavin contributed to this report.