5th Site Identified as Arson Target

A fifth house of worship in Encino was the target of an arson attack this week, though it was apparently foiled by a neighbor who chased away a man who hurled a rock through a window of an orthodox synagogue and left behind a flammable liquid, authorities said Thursday.

No one was hurt in the 8:30 p.m. Tuesday attack on Da’at Torah Educational Center, a small temple tucked in a Ventura Boulevard minimall, Los Angeles Police Department Assistant Chief Jim McDonnell said.

But like recent attacks at four nearby religious buildings, investigators at the synagogue found a liquid accelerant -- which enhances a material’s flammability -- and considered the incident an attempted arson, said Los Angeles Fire Battalion Chief Dennis Waters, head of a multi-agency task force investigating the fires.

“The person intended to burn it down,” he said.

City Councilman Jack Weiss, whose district includes Encino, criticized the Fire and Police departments for what he said was not a full-force response until an attack Tuesday on Valley Beth Shalom.

“There was definitely some confusion,” he said. “At some level there was a significant failure to communicate.”

Some LAPD officials expressed frustration that the Fire Department had not notified them about the fires until Tuesday. But Fire Battalion Chief Robert Franco said the LAPD’s Criminal Conspiracy Unit had been notified by phone shortly after the first attack on April 26 and again after attacks on Monday.

The first fire was discovered about 1 a.m. April 26 at the First Presbyterian Church of Encino. The next two fires broke out Monday at a Bahai community center and a small Iranian synagogue on Ventura Boulevard.

About 10 hours after the attack at the Da’at synagogue -- and about six blocks away--someone threw what is believed to have been a Molotov cocktail into the sanctuary at the Valley Beth Shalom synagogue, causing minor interior damage.

Weiss said he would introduce a motion today asking for an accounting of the notification procedure between Los Angeles’ city Fire and Police departments. The motion also will call for the Fire Department to notify the LAPD whenever a fire of suspicious origin breaks out at a house of worship or at the 550 locations that local antiterror officials have identified as “high-risk targets,” he said.

Fire Department spokesman Brian Humphrey said the agency notifies police of fires immediately if there are deaths, serious injuries or great damage. The department also notifies the LAPD if the fires are high profile, Franco said.

The Encino attacks have resulted in mostly minor damage and no injuries.

Committing Resources

But they have stoked deep fear in the religious community and elicited an overwhelming response in manpower. On Thursday, nearly 100 local and federal investigators gathered information, conducted surveillance and interviewed witnesses. A day earlier, LAPD Police Chief William J. Bratton said his department would commit 65 detectives to the investigation.

Officials said they were also trying to better understand the possible motive for targeting three Jewish synagogues in the week of Israel’s 55th anniversary of independence -- and also a Bahai center and a Presbyterian church.Officials said the manpower dedicated to this investigation was a sign that they are taking the incidents seriously.

“It’s probably the ultimate hate crime we can think of,” LAPD spokesman Jack Richter said. “Burning a church -- I can’t think of a worse crime, other than killing somebody.”

Mark Leap, commander of the LAPD’s antiterrorism division, said the large deployment could also help them find suspects sooner. In addition to local police and fire officials, the effort includes investigators from the federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, the FBI, and the district attorney’s hate crimes and arson units.

“Every hour that goes by, the trail can grow colder,” he said. “That’s why you want to throw a lot of resources out there.”

That show of force did not surprise Daniel McBride, a former federal supervisor and special agent who investigated numerous serial arsons in his 21 years of service.

“The government will usually pull out all the plugs to go after serial arsonists, because they’re very dangerous,” said McBride, who is a faculty member at Kaplan College in Boca Raton, Fla. “Every fire has the possibility of killing. Plus, there is the sensitivity of the houses of worship.”

At this stage, McBride said, investigators are probably looking for consistent elements from building to building, to determine if the attacks are the work of one individual or group, or a number of unrelated copycats.

They are also scrutinizing other details, including how sophisticated the fire-starting systems were.

Such information can be used by profilers to narrow down the pool of suspects.

“They’re looking for personality, characteristics, commonalities, something that might give the investigators clues about the suspects -- is it a rich kid from the suburbs or a wanderer?” McBride said.

On Thursday, authorities said they were questioning a man in his 20s who was arrested by campus police at Cal State Northridge after he broke into a gymnasium early Thursday. His connection to the attacks, if any, was unclear. McDonnell said the man, whose name was not released, “had not been ruled out” as a suspect.

But Leap downplayed the arrest, and said it may be unrelated to the fires.

Los Angeles created its House of Worship Arson Task Force in 1996, the same year President Clinton established the National Church Arson Task Force in response to a spate of church arsons in the South. In the national task force’s most recent report, dated September 2000, it said that the number of arson investigations had substantially declined -- from 297 in 1996 to 140 in 1999 -- because of increased vigilance and enforcement

But a group called the National Coalition for Burned Churches and Community Empowerment, which studies local and national law enforcement records and media and victims’ accounts, said that arsons at houses of worship are “still a problem.” From 1999 to 2001, the Charleston, S.C.-based coalition, made up of pastors and members of firebombed churches, found 685 incidents of arson, bombing, attempted arson, and suspicious or undetermined fires at houses of worship. Of those, 452 were arsons, 36 were bombings and 51 were attempts at arson, the coalition reported.

The coalition said that such incidents are “highly concentrated” in the South and the Southwest, with Texas reporting 125 of the 685 cases the group has documented. California had the fifth-highest rate of incidents, with 33 cases, the coalition said.

Rabbi Moshe Hafuta of the Da’at synagogue said he grew accustomed to such problems while living in Israel. But the Tuesday attack was the first major act of intolerance he has experienced since moving to the United States two years ago.

It is also the first attack on the temple, which he started 14 months ago to serve a small group of Israeli, American and Persian Jews, who attend services and Torah classes in a clean, bright space that once housed a concert ticket business.

On Thursday, Hafuta showed visitors the plywood board that covered the synagogue’s smashed-out side window.

He said he was a bit scared, “even though I am not showing it. But when something like this happens, it’s not going to stop us. The synagogue, the studies -- that’s our power.”

Interfaith Service

About 120 people of various faiths gathered Thursday night to also show solidarity in their condemnation of the attacks.

Jewish, Catholic, Muslim, Protestant, Bahai and Buddhist worshipers were among those at the interfaith ceremony at St. Cyril of Jerusalem Catholic Church on Ventura Boulevard in Encino.

“I think by showing we’re united, we’re sending a message,” Stephen Buchsbaum of Woodland Hills said. “We’re angry, and people have to understand these acts are wrong and we won’t tolerate it.”

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Times staff writers Michael Krikorian and Nita Lelyveld contributed to this report.