Teen May Face Trial as Adult in Hate Crime Case

Prosecutors will seek to try a 17-year-old as an adult in connection with last weekend’s Huntington Beach attack on a Native American who was slashed 27 times with a hunting knife, a district attorney said.

Police and other government officials hailed the prosecutors’ move as a step forward in a battle to send a message that hate crimes will not be tolerated.

“It is absolutely essential to respond with the utmost severity in terms of aggressive prosecution,” said Rusty Kennedy, executive director of the county’s Human Relations Commission. “This is not just a crime against the victim, but also against our whole society, because it seeks to alienate people.”

A hearing to determine whether the 17-year-old from La Palma will take the stand as an adult is set for Feb. 28. He was arrested over the weekend along with a 20-year-old man, Erik Anderson of Huntington Beach, both of whom have been charged with attempted murder. A third suspect, Shannon Martin, 23, of Huntington Beach was charged with conspiracy and accessory to the crime.

The attack occurred at 12:45 a.m. Saturday, when a group of self-declared white supremacists approached the victim near a lifeguard tower on the beach and asked if he believed in “white power.” Police said that when the victim tried to run, the 17-year-old grabbed him and punched him in the face. Moments later, a man suspected to have been Anderson stabbed the victim.

The weapon, which police say was taken from the scene by Martin, has not been recovered. The victim was in stable condition Wednesday.

The 17-year-old faces a maximum sentence of life in prison if he is convicted as an adult. If convicted as a juvenile, he would be released at age 25. He has denied the charges.

Anderson also faces life in prison if convicted.

Detectives said Anderson had verbally attacked other minorities that night before the stabbing and told them he is a member of the Ku Klux Klan in Riverside County.

Anderson’s 44-year-old father, Robert Anderson, disputed that Wednesday, saying his son has “never been to Riverside.” He said his son lived in Bakersfield for about a year to look for a job, but failed and moved home around Christmas.

“How can he be a member of a group in Riverside when he’s never been there?” the father said. “If he was involved in anything like that at all, and I’m not saying that he was, it would have been during the time he spent in Bakersfield.”

Anderson said that his son has told him that he is not a KKK member, and the father contended Anderson never went “out of his way” to act or look like a skinhead.

“He’s not in a gang or anything,” he said.

To prevent further violence downtown, police sent a five-member, mobile task force to the area Wednesday, Lt. Dan Johnson said. The special force, which can be deployed to various hot spots throughout the city as needed, will be working primarily in the Main Street area during the next few weeks, Johnson said.

Other investigators, dressed in civilian clothes, were also assigned to gather intelligence on criminal activities--not necessarily limited to skinheads--in the area.

“Let’s just say we want to ensure that things don’t get worse,” Johnson said.

Councilwoman Shirley S. Dettloff, appalled by Saturday’s attack, called a meeting with Kennedy to discuss ways to curb racial incidents in the city. Next Thursday, Dettloff said, she and Councilman Ralph Bauer will meet with Kennedy to discuss “what we, as a community, can do to solve this problem.” One possibility is working with schools to “change the minds and hearts of young people,” Dettloff said.

The ideas from that meeting will be discussed by council members at their Feb. 19 meeting, she said.

“I hope that we are going to go forward with making sure there is a mechanism to deal with what I think is a cancer in our community,” Dettloff said. “The citizens of this community should not have to be frightened.”

In 1994, the latest year in which statistics are available, the Human Relations Commission reported that the Orange County district attorney’s office prosecuted six hate crimes, two of which happened in Huntington Beach. During the same period, the commission tallied 180 hate-related incidents, many of which were not reported to police.

“The problem is that sometimes it is impossible or very difficult to prove that the motive was hate,” said Kennedy, whose commission monitors hate crimes in the county. “It’s easy to prove that somebody was beaten up. Now, what was the motive is much tougher to do.”