Efforts to Add Minority Deputies Face Obstacles

As the Antelope Valley grapples with a rash of race-related attacks, the Sheriff’s Department says union seniority requirements make it difficult to assign more minority deputies to the troubled area.

The department’s problem exemplifies obstacles encountered in implementing recommendations made by the county Human Relations Committee more than a year ago to lower racial tensions in the high desert suburbs, a region of dramatic demographic shifts.

Failure to carry out the recommendations has been blamed by some civil rights leaders for the sudden outbreak of racial violence--six incidents in 22 days, beginning with a machete attack on a black teenager July 8 by white youths shouting “white power.”

Of the 268 deputies assigned to the Antelope Valley station, 16 are Latino, four black and one of Asian descent, and the other 247 are white, said the station commander, Capt. Mike Aranda, last week.

Efforts to add more minority deputies founder on the seniority rules of the Assn. for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs and because the Antelope Valley, isolated from the Los Angeles urban core, is regarded as a desirable assignment, Aranda said.

“We’re such a distance from the rest of the world,” he said. “It’s attractive for personnel who already live here and want to work here too.”

Because many minority deputies were hired during diversification campaigns of recent years, they do not have the seniority to advance on a waiting list dominated by longer-serving white deputies, Aranda said.

“My hope is that something could be worked out with the association,” he said.

Seniority rules can be overridden “in situations where there’s a demonstrated need to fill a spot with a specific skill”--such as language ability--said association spokesman Jeffrey Monical. But the association will not advance minorities over senior white deputies just to meet the Human Relations Committee’s recommendations, he said.

“Right now the people in the Antelope Valley are well-served in public safety,” he said, arguing that the seniority system in effect channels to the high desert some of the most experienced law enforcement officers in the county.

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Racial crimes are reported in many cities across Los Angeles County, but tough economic times and changes in the Valley’s demographics have contributed to rising tensions in the Antelope Valley, local civil rights activists say.

The number of jobs in the aerospace industry--long the valley’s mainstay--have declined. Meanwhile, large numbers of African Americans and Latinos have moved into the area. The white population of Palmdale, 84% in 1980, was down to 60% last year. African Americans, who made up 3.3% of Lancaster’s population in 1980, were 7.2% of the 97,291 residents in 1990.

Although Aranda says there is little he can do about adding more minority deputies, Ron Wakabayashi, executive director of the Human Relations Commission, said there are other steps the department could take to combat the violence.

He applauded Aranda for doubling his gang enforcement detail from seven deputies to 14 and for assigning a deputy to promote racial understanding among students at local high schools.

He also praised the department for the swift arrest of skinhead suspects one day after the assault that began the recent series of incidents. Marcus Cotton, 16, was slashed with a machete, but not seriously injured, and his cousin Angela McKenzie, 17, was spat upon. Two suspects in the attacks, both 16, now face federal criminal charges, and one also faces a state hate-crime charge.

But Wakabayashi added that the department’s public relations could have been more effective.

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Because deputies had a solid description of the suspects early on, they should have held a news conference, not only to help track down the assailants but to send a strong message to the public that the crime was receiving the highest priority, Wakabayashi said.

The lack of such a public display of urgency could have contributed to the desire for revenge on white victims that appeared to motivate a string of subsequent attacks, he said.

“Anyone who shares in a group identity, or has some anxiety that they might be identified in with the group, starts believing that they might be victimized,” Wakabayashi said.

“After a while, their anxiety starts shifting to anger and they’re going to want law enforcement to go out and take care of things. I think it’s important for them and local officials to clearly demonstrate that they have a strong control of the situation.”

The attack on Cotton was followed by five suspected race-related attacks--four of them attacks on whites by African Americans who made reference to skinheads or white racists, deputies said.

Deputies said that in at least two of the incidents, the victims appeared to be skinheads--white youths with shaved scalps who wear military-type attire and are often white supremacists.

Previously, Danny Williams, 22, of Lancaster, a self-described skinhead who was arrested on suspicion of the Cotton assault but released for lack of evidence, was attacked in jail by black inmates who he said yelled “KKK!” He received minor cuts and bruises.

In the most recent assault, Ricky Dixon, 34, of Lancaster, an African American, said he was attacked by suspected skinheads July 29 while he, his wife and daughter waited for his son outside Sierra Elementary School in Lancaster, deputies said. The three attackers yelled racial epithets before pummeling him, deputies said.

Dixon, who is 6 feet, 1 inch and weighs 250 pounds, said he fought off the attackers and was not seriously hurt. Another group of suspected skinheads shouted insults at his wife several days previously, he told deputies.

Sheriff’s Department gang researchers estimate there are at least 80 “potentially violent skinheads” in the area, double their estimate last year.

The series of violent incidents renewed interest in the Human Relations Committee recommendations delivered in February 1995.

That report was brought on by a widely publicized hate crime, a shooting attack on a parked car containing three African American men and an 11-month-old baby, who were grazed by bullets and cut by flying glass. Three skinheads pleaded guilty to attempted murder charges in March and were sentenced to prison terms of up to 20 years.

In addition to increased law-enforcement diversity, the commission recommended such measures as school projects in which students of different ethnicities work together, and the establishment of regional hotline to report hate crimes.

The commission report led to few changes, however. Movement has been stalled in Palmdale and Lancaster by a debate over whether they had a problem with hate crimes and whether too much attention was being focused on crimes against minorities and not enough on violence against whites.

The community is now seeing the effects of not tackling racial problems by implementing the commission report, said Ollie Linson, vice president of the Antelope Valley chapter of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People. “The thinking seems to have been that if you gave these problems some time they will de-escalate,” he said. “Well, they haven’t gone away and now we need to deal with them.”

“If it was up to me, we would have had a policy a year ago,” said the Rev. Henry Hearns, a minister, vice mayor and the only African American on the Lancaster City Council. “I don’t have a good answer to why we took so long, except that I think we tried to please everybody.”

The machete attack took place three days before the Lancaster council was scheduled to discuss implementing a hate crimes policy.

Not only the Sheriff’s Department but other agencies as well have had trouble implementing the measures recommended in his committee’s report, Wakabayashi said.

The school system still plans to implement some of the recommendations, including the establishment of conflict resolution groups when classes begin Sept. 3. Many of the sweeping changes recommended for schools have not been put into effect, with school administrators saying they are planning more effective measures.

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Wakabayashi said it took more than a year for local politicians and community leaders to come up with an Antelope Valley-wide hate-crime hotline because the groups had not worked together in the past.

He said mistrust delayed the hotline when Palmdale Mayor James C. Ledford decided, a day after the Cotton assault, to use an existing graffiti abatement hotline to garner hate-crime reports as well.

Civil rights activists quickly accused Ledford of trying to subvert their plans to advertise the line on billboards. They alleged that he feared it would scare off businesses and home buyers.

They contended that Ledford’s version of the hotline, which was to be staffed by city employees, would not be as diligent in recording hate-crime reports as civilian operators would.

The debate over the hotline brought in a new participant: the Nation of Islam.

At the invitation of the newly formed Antelope Valley Coalition for Racial Healing, the Islamic group’s western regional director, Tony Muhammad, unexpectedly showed up at the coalition’s City Hall news conference with a stern-faced, 30-man security force to press Ledford for the hate-crime hotline.

They conferred in private with Ledford and left after Muhammad told reporters there would be “justice in the streets as never before” unless authorities dealt with the problems behind the attack on Cotton.

Hearns expressed fears that the presence of the Nation of Islam, which has called in the past for a segregated society, could increase racial tensions.

“While I appreciate the concern of others, I think that the Antelope Valley is capable of handling its own problems,” Hearns said.

Days after Muhammad’s appearance, Hearns and other black ministers held a rally in front of Lancaster City Hall, denouncing the violence. A racially diverse crowd of about 200 took a mass pledge supporting “unity of all ethnic groups” and concluded the 30-minute rally holding hands and singing “Lean on Me.”

Palmdale and Lancaster city officials have agreed to set up the regional hate-crimes hotline, expected to go into operation any day now, Ledford said.

Ledford said the city of Palmdale also hopes to develop “information ambassadors” who can speak at schools or to community groups about hate crimes and answer questions.

“We want to market what a hate crime is and that they will not be tolerated,” Ledford said.

“There is a willingness by the community to remove this threat. . . . This is an issue we want to prioritize as unacceptable.”

Tamaki is a Times staff writer and Gonzales is a correspondent.