Antelope Valley Group Focuses on Hate Crimes

After a week of highly publicized suspected hate crimes, Antelope Valley elected officials, civil rights leaders and law enforcement commanders met Monday to discuss racial animosity in the area and how to deal with the violence.

The meeting of the Antelope Valley Human Relations Study Group, scheduled before last week’s rash of violence, reached areas of agreement and disagreement.

The participants applauded the city of Lancaster’s decision to support a citizens task force to set up a hate crime hotline and advertise it on local cable television and billboards. The task force also plans to establish discussion groups at Lancaster schools to promote racial harmony.

But participants criticized Palmdale Mayor James C. Ledford for not going through with plans for a joint hate crime hotline with Lancaster. Ledford said that, instead, Palmdale’s existing graffiti abatement number could also be used to report racially motivated crimes.

Ledford said his action established the hotline with no further red tape. “My concern was not the task force, my concern was the residents of our city,” he said.

Latino activist Eugene Hernandez criticized Ledford for not giving minority groups more influence. “It seems just like you’re afraid to work with us minorities--give us some respect, give us some responsibility,” Hernandez said.

Ledford said that although he does not support the formation of the citizens task force he does support the programs it seeks to implement. He argued that it would be better to have the city government in charge of such programs.

“I don’t think we should focus on formulation of” the community group, he said. “We should move ahead now” with city resources to combat racism, he said.

The week’s violence began July 8 when Marcus Cotton, 16, and his cousin Angela McKenzie, 17, were attacked by white youths who yelled, “White power!” and slashed Marcus with a machete. He was treated at Antelope Valley Hospital for a deep cut on his arm but was not seriously injured.

Two 16-year-old Lancaster boys, arrested on suspicion of committing the assault, were charged with committing a hate crime and assault with a deadly weapon. The Los Angeles County district attorney’s Hate Crimes Division is seeking to try them as adults.

Danny Williams, 22, of Lancaster was also arrested in the attack but was released without charges, although authorities said he is still a suspect.

On Friday, while still in jail, Williams was beaten by inmates who he said were black and yelled, “KKK!” before pummeling him.

Williams said he is a skinhead and supports a segregated society. “I just want to live with people of my own color,” he said. “Even some black people want to live with nothing but blacks.”

A Los Angeles County Human Relations Commission report issued last year, in response to skinhead attacks on blacks, estimated the Antelope Valley is home to 40 to 100 skinheads, members of gangs that are often based on white racism.

Duane Jones, 19, who is white, said he was assaulted Saturday by as many as six African American men as he rode his bicycle near 2Oth Street East and Avenue J in Lancaster. He told sheriff’s deputies the men pulled next to him in an auto and the passenger in the front seat struck him in the head with a metal object.

Jones said the other men then jumped out of the car and started hitting him after asking if he was skinhead and shouting racial epithets. One of the men pointed a handgun at him and pulled the trigger three times, but it did not fire, Jones said.

Jones was treated at a hospital for a three-inch cut on the back of his head.

Earlier Saturday, an Acton man was shot in a confrontation he also described as racial. Robert Ulberg, 25, told deputies that at least two black men approached him in a car while he walked near Avenue J and 10th Street West.

The men shouted, “skinhead!” and shot him in the abdomen, he said. Deputies are still trying to verify Ulberg’s account. He remained hospitalized Monday at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center in Mission Hills after surgery.