Mayoral Hopefuls Wrangle on Crime Issues

The two mayoral candidates continued to jab at each other’s approach to criminal justice issues Friday, even as each man accused his opponent of muddying the campaign and misrepresenting his record.

The heated back-and-forth spilled over from the charged debate a day earlier, when City Atty. James K. Hahn called Antonio Villaraigosa’s record abysmal. Villaraigosa shot back, comparing Hahn to former Mayor Sam Yorty, infamous for running a racially divisive campaign against Tom Bradley.

During a news conference Friday, Villaraigosa accused Hahn of distorting his voting record, adding: “Let’s agree that we both want to fight crime and work with law enforcement to do that. Let’s agree that we should get out of the mud and focus on the issues. Jim Hahn yesterday said that I should be a man. I say to Jim Hahn, ‘It’s time to grow up.’ ”

Hahn charged his rival with “slinging mud” by comparing him to Yorty, but he refused to say whether he thought the former assemblyman was accusing him of being racist.

“I don’t know what it is, but it doesn’t belong in a campaign,” Hahn said. “I think what we need to do is lower the rhetoric.”

Villaraigosa--potentially the city’s first Latino mayor in more than a century--insisted Friday that he did not intend to accuse Hahn of racism, only of distorting his record on crime in a way similar to how Yorty twisted Bradley’s.

But not all campaign veterans agreed, saying the mere mention of Yorty evokes memories of elections that played on people’s racial prejudices.

During his two campaigns against his African American opponent 30 years ago, Yorty told voters that Bradley’s election could lead to a power grab by radical groups like the Black Panthers. He said that police officers would flee the city and that another Watts riots could ensue.

“It was a cheap shot,” Republican political consultant Allan Hoffenblum said of Villaraigosa’s remark. “It’s playing the race card. I believe one should not raise that unless there is a consensus that it is a legitimate issue and there is a real problem. And I don’t think that was the case here.”

Others were more equivocal.

“Invoking the ghosts of the past in this particular race doesn’t seem particularly cogent, in looking at the immediacy of charges on one’s record on crime,” said H. Eric Schockman, a visiting associate professor of political science at USC, who supports Villaraigosa. “If it’s referring to the racial tactics of Sam Yorty, that should not be directed at Jim Hahn. . . . If it’s being used in terms of dirty tricks or exaggeration that Yorty also engaged in, that seems accurate.”

Many others found the issue of race and ethnicity in the campaign so emotionally loaded that they chose not to comment at all. And leaders who had earlier called for the candidates to avoid divisiveness renewed those pleas.

Without singling out either contender, Bishop Frederick H. Borsch of the Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles urged both to “repudiate the advisors who are suggesting this kind of negative campaigning.”

Fernando Guerra, director of the Center for the Study of Los Angeles at Loyola Marymount University, said both men are dangerously close to turning the last five weeks of the race into an ugly battle.

“If I could communicate anything to Jim Hahn and Antonio Villaraigosa, it’s that you don’t tear up the city just for you to win,” Guerra said.

During a morning news conference Friday in front of the North Hollywood police station, Villaraigosa defended his stance on crime and took a swipe at Hahn’s use of gang injunctions in the city, implying that the technique simply shifts gang activity to new neighborhoods.

“Making this city a safe place to live requires more than just chasing gangs from one neighborhood to another,” Villaraigosa said as he touted new endorsements from state Atty. Gen. Bill Lockyer and Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Burbank). “I have a record of fighting for innovative anti-crime programs and for tough-on-crime sentencing over and over again.”

Hahn’s campaign has said Villaraigosa failed to back tough penalties for gang-related crime, sexual offenders and child abusers. The Times reported Friday that an examination of Legislature records found that the city attorney took some of the votes out of context and that his references to some of them were misleading.

Democrat Lockyer said at the North Hollywood news conference that it is “easy to mischaracterize legislative votes.”

“Both of these guys want to fight crime, and I think it’s a phony issue,” he said. “I found as the attorney general for California that every single time I needed assistance in the Legislature to improve crime-fighting capacity and programs, Villaraigosa was there as assemblyman and speaker to help me with those efforts.”

Meanwhile, Hahn’s campaign continued to press Villaraigosa on his votes on crime legislation. A few minutes before the news conference with Lockyer, Hahn consultant Kam Kuwata arrived at the North Hollywood station and gave a group of reporters a list of 12 bills that the attorney general supported when he was in the Legislature but that Villaraigosa voted against.

But Kuwata backed away from saying the campaign was charging Villaraigosa with being “soft on crime.”

“I don’t think he’s soft on crime,” Kuwata said. “He comes from a different background . . . and [the candidates] have a different view on how crime prevention should be executed.”

Later, Hahn said in an interview that he is talking about Villaraigosa’s crime record because “I think his votes are out of step with what the majority of voters in this city believe.”

And he defended his use of gang injunctions, saying Angelenos want their leaders to take “a strong stand against gangs” that terrorize neighborhoods. Hahn has said earlier that there is no evidence that the injunctions push gang activity to other communities.