O.C. Merchants Feel Menaced by Skinhead Gangs

On Main Street, everyone has a story about the skinheads.

Shawna Sakal, whose family owns a surf shop, remembers the black store clerk harassed by young toughs. Curtis Maddox recalls the four meaty arms jerking out of a passing car in Hitler-style salutes. Lance Lee, a sales clerk at Beachcomber’s Surf Shop, tells of the man who came in the other day looking to sell his surfboard.

“It had swastikas all over it,” Lee said. “We bought it, but we had to paint them over.”

The skinheads come out at night here, the strip of surf shops and cafes that stretches a half-mile inland from the Huntington Beach Pier. Storekeepers and patrons say the throngs of men with close-cropped hair and steel-toed boots and black-and-white suspenders are a regular sight, hanging on street corners and cruising in their cars. There often aren’t many skinhead gang members--police say about 25 regularly roam the area--but they push and shove and growl so no one forgets.

After a knife attack on a Native American man last weekend, the people who shop and work on Main Street spoke about the tough-looking men who roam their sidewalks at night.

“I try not to look at them when I walk by,” said Michael Deboe, climbing out of the Pacific Ocean after a day of surfing. “They’re here every night. They’re crazy.”

No one here seemed able to account for why the skinheads chose this corner of Huntington Beach--known for its glassy swells--as their nighttime haunt. Fewer still are willing to speculate on why a group of young men slashed a Native American near to death on the beach just down the street. Most of time, the white supremacists who gather here are viewed not with fear, but with contempt.

“They’re wannabe Nazis,” said Kyle Phillips, who was strolling down Main Street on Tuesday afternoon.

Police arrested three men in connection with the late-night stabbing: Erik Anderson, a 20-year-old Huntington Beach man and self-described klansman; Shannon Martin, 23, of Huntington Beach, and a 17-year-old male who police say is active in skinhead groups.

Everyone along Main Street had heard of Saturday’s stabbing, but few people agreed on the cause of the problem or how to solve it. Some said the skinheads are hurting business and should be chased from town. Others, fearful of bad publicity, said the stabbing was an isolated event that was being blown out of proportion by people who didn’t know the area. Other said the police and the media were overreacting.

“A lot of people shave their heads and that doesn’t mean they’re a skinhead,” said James Varona, who owns six shops along Main Street. “You guys are going to say this place is full of skinheads and it is going to scare everybody away.”

Some merchants say the skinheads already do that. They say the groups of young men stand in front of their shops and ward off potential customers. Rarely, they say, do the sullen young men actually come in and buy anything.

“Sometimes people won’t come in here if there are skinheads around,” said Brian Boyer, a clerk at Sakal’s Surfboards.

Some merchants said that people and police were failing to distinguish between the white skinhead gang members and the people who merely look like them. They suggested the police were being too aggressive in trying to banish them from the street. There are too few of the real type around to hurt their business, they said.

“They don’t affect my business,” said Leslie Ecker of Beachcomber’s surf shop. “The police are on a personal vendetta.”

Still, several merchants and employees of local stores interviewed Tuesday asked not to be quoted by name because they feared reaction if they publicly criticized the skinheads.

“They’ll come looking for me,” said one restaurant employee who spoke on the condition that his name be withheld.

Police say the skinheads come to the city looking for others who share their views. Huntington Beach Lt. Dan Johnson said most of the skinheads loitering downtown are in their late teens or early 20s.

“We’ve had that reputation, and an undeserved one at that,” Johnson said. “Over the years, it has attracted an increasing number of skinheads and skinhead types.”

The department has two detectives keeping tabs of skinheads along with other gangs in the city. Four police officers on duty in the area also work to control that crowd.

Skinheads are blamed for many problems here.

Roman Castellanos, 25, of Seal Beach, walked down Main Street Tuesday sporting a large bandage on his left arm and long red gashes in his back. Castellanos said he was beaten and kicked Saturday by a group of eight men not far from where the scene of the stabbing. They severed a tendon in his arm.

Castellanos said he was not sure if the men who beat him up were skinheads, but he would not rule it out.

“They’ll beat on anybody,” Castellanos said.

Jeff Klatt, the manager of Wahoo’s Fish Taco, recalls a group of skinheads hassling an Asian woman. And he remembers the time when a black man ducked into his store, worried about a group of them standing nearby.

“They’re always out there on their corner,” Klass said.

A busboy in a local restaurant remembers the time when a group of skinheads yelled and jeered at a group of black people walking in the area.

“They intimidate people when they go by,” said the busboy, who asked that his name not be used.

If the merchants are worried that the skinheads will chase away business, some people interviewed Tuesday suggested they may have a point. Steve Schreiber, who walked along the sidewalk Tuesday, said he was wary of the skinheads.

“They’re lame,” he said. “That’s why we don’t come here much anymore.”

* THIRD SUSPECT ACCUSED: Alleged accomplice to Saturday beach stabbing is charged. B1