4 Held in Balboa Pier Stabbing

Four alleged white supremacists are in custody on suspicion of stabbing a Latino while he was fishing at the Balboa Pier, after witnesses overheard the group roaming the Balboa Fun Zone talking about “white power,” police said.

The group approached the 37-year-old victim at about 9:45 p.m. Thursday and one abruptly stabbed him in the right shoulder blade, according to Newport Beach Police Sgt. John Desmond.

“Apparently there’s nothing that premeditates it, no conversation or anything,” Desmond said.

Fishermen and residents described the outburst of violence as an uncharacteristic intrusion into the peninsula’s placid atmosphere of surfers and family-oriented tourism.

“This is the first time I’ve ever heard of a scuffle or anyone even raising their voice,” said Ted Post, 53, of Orange, who grew up on Balboa Island and has been fishing the pier for bonito since he was 7. “It’s the first time the skinheads have come down here.”

The stabbing jarred residents in a town more accustomed to the occasional surf accident.

The victim, Ramon Valdez Martinez, of Orange, was taken to Western Medical Center-Santa Ana. Hospital officials declined to release any information about Martinez but police said a nurse described his condition as “guarded to critical.”

The suspects were arrested a short while after the stabbing by a patrol officer who heard a broadcast and spotted their vehicle at Balboa Boulevard and 15th Street.

Daniel Michael James Johnson, 18, of Orange; Bryan James Serio, 20, of Anaheim; and Dennis Paul Desanti Jr., 18, of Westminster, were all booked into the Newport Beach City Jail without bail on suspicion of attempted murder and the commission of a hate crime, Desmond said.

The fourth youth, a 17-year-old from Mission Viejo, was booked into Orange County Juvenile Hall on suspicion of the same charges, Desmond said.

Divers from the Orange County Sheriff’s Department and Newport Beach Marine Department recovered a large folding knife believed to be the weapon in Newport Bay off the M Street pier at about 12:30 p.m. Friday, Desmond said.

“Our detectives had reason to believe that it was discarded in that area,” he said. “We’ve obtained some information from [the suspects] that led us to search the right area. As to the extent of the cooperation, I don’t know.”

Desmond said it appears only one suspect stabbed Martinez, but it is unclear at this point who was responsible. Police may seek less serious charges against the others, he said. Investigators are also trying to clarify the motive for the stabbing.

“Apparently the victim and the suspects don’t know each other,” he said.

One of the suspects, whom Desmond said all have shaved heads and tattoos, was carrying white supremacist literature.

“We’re trying to find out if there is some kind of affiliation” with a white supremacist group, he added. “I think it’s pretty safe to say they are skinheads. They’re into white pride and white supremacy. We have one witness who said they were being loud and raucous and overheard them saying something about white pride.”

Other than a string of minor traffic infractions for Serio, the adult suspects appear to have no local criminal records, a review of court records indicated.

Huntington Beach police, who have dealt with the bulk of the county’s skinhead violence and keep a book of active skinheads, declined to comment on the case because it involved another agency.

Police there stepped up patrols after a racially motivated stabbing on the beach by skinheads last February. In that incident, a 20-year-old Native American man was stabbed 27 times by two skinheads and left in critical condition, after a group of the youths had roamed that city’s pier challenging people about white power.

On the Balboa Peninsula Friday, business owners described the previous night’s event as an isolated incident that might have come as a result of the increasing police crackdown on skinheads in Huntington Beach.

“We’ve tried to keep a family atmosphere, and this is the last thing we need,” said Kent Maddy, 42, who owns a video arcade near the Balboa Fun Zone, a collection of arcades, a merry-go-round, pizza stands and other tourist attractions.

A 25-year-old Balboa resident who declined to give his name said he saw the youths at the Fun Zone Thursday night and noticed their appearance.

“That’s only the second time I’ve ever seen skinheads down here,” he said. “It’s like a small town. If you don’t belong here, people know.”

While Newport Beach is a mostly white city, the Balboa Pier draws a lot of minorities from other areas who go there to fish, said Post, who left the pier Friday morning without a catch.