In ‘95, Blacks Targeted Most in O.C. Hate Crimes

Skinheads and other white supremacists were responsible for the majority of hate crimes in Orange County in 1995, committing 102 of 175 crimes and targeting African Americans and Jews in the largest numbers, according to a report by the Orange County Human Relations Commission.

The study released Thursday said that while the number of reported hate crimes in the county declined slightly, the number of crimes against African Americans rose from 36 to 44, accounting for 25% of all hate crimes.

Commission officials attributed the increase in part to white anger at the acquittal of O.J. Simpson on charges of murdering his ex-wife and her friend. They recounted hostile phone calls to African American residents after the verdict.

“What we generally see are three types of hate crime: Those that are mission driven, those that are reactive and those that really involved social or peer pressure,” said Rusty Kennedy, executive director of the Human Relations Commission. “The reactive ones are generally about what’s happening in the world and people are afraid of, say, immigrants because [Prop.] 187 is in the news and then they do something.”

The number of hate crimes against Asians rose from 11 to 19, but the number of crimes against Jews declined from 53 to 36. In 1994, Jews were the most frequent targets of hate crimes in the county.

The incidents--which include verbal and physical assaults, vandalism and racist mailings--were taken from police reports. They include:

* The assault on an African American male in Mission Viejo, who was approached by four white suspects, one of whom pulled a handgun, used a racial epithet and said “This is white power,” according to police. Another suspect hit him on the head.

* At a high school in Huntington Beach, two skinheads cornered a Latina student in the bathroom and beat her while chanting white power slogans.

* While surfing in Dana Point, a Chinese American was punched in the face by another surfer who said “This is a white beach,” and used a racial slur.

The district attorney’s office reviewed just 10 of the hate crimes, because in the vast majority of cases, police had no suspects, Kennedy said. Four were prosecuted; three were rejected with no criminal charges; three more were pursued, but not as hate crimes because of a lack of evidence.

The incident descriptions show, however, that the scope of racial anger in the county reaches into every corner of life--from county offices to neighborhoods to schools. Although most crimes were perpetrated by whites against nonwhites or against whites who were in the company of nonwhites, every racial group had victims.

While the incidents may seem isolated, Kennedy said, hate crimes tend to reflect racial events throughout the country. For example, he noted, the number of hate crimes against African Americans peaked in 1992, after the Rodney King beating trial. Homosexuals were the primary target of hate crimes in Orange County in 1993, he said, when the nation was debating whether they should be allowed to serve openly in the military.

Crime against Arab Americans shot up after the Persian Gulf War and immediately after the bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City when there was speculation that Muslim fundamentalists had committed the attack.

Kennedy also provided an update on the Feb. 3 stabbing of an American Indian man in Huntington Beach, whose attackers allegedly included a member of the Ku Klux Klan.

Kennedy said George Mondragon, 20, of Crestline, had the last of his stitches removed from the stabbing attack and it appears he will not suffer permanent damage.

Huntington Beach police Lt. Dan Johnson, who attended the commission meeting, said police estimate that a core group of 15 youths are skinheads who have staked out the Main Street area as their turf.

“We are determined to change that,” Johnson said. “If they are committing crimes, they will be arrested. We have eight officers and a sergeant assigned there, mainly in the evenings, probably for the next two months.”