Sheriff’s Department Defends Its Response to Hate Crimes

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 by the county Human Relations Commission 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 since July 8, when a black teenager was attacked with a machete by white youths shouting “white power!”

Capt. Mike Aranda, commander of the Antelope Valley station, said last week that of the 268 deputies assigned there, 16 are Latino, four are black, one is of Asian descent and the rest are white.

Efforts to add minority deputies are hampered by the seniority rules of the Assn. for Los Angeles Deputy Sheriffs and because the Antelope Valley, isolated from 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 diversity 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 Commission’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 channels some of the most experienced law enforcement officers in the county to the High Desert.

Tough economic times and changes in the Antelope Valley’s demographics have contributed to rising tensions there, 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. In 1980, whites made up 84% of Palmdale’s population; last year they accounted for 60%. African Americans, who made up 3.3% of Lancaster’s population in 1980, were 7.2% of the 97,291 residents in 1990.

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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 important things the department can do.

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.

Federal criminal charges have been filed against two juveniles arrested in the attack on Cotton, according to statements exchanged by attorneys during a Juvenile Court hearing. The exact charges against the juveniles were not revealed.

Wakabayashi also said the department’s public relations could have been more effective.

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 whites that appeared to motivate a string of subsequent attacks, he said.

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

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

The recent series of violent incidents renewed interest in the Human Relations Commission 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. The people in the car 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.

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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 a regional hotline for reporting 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, 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 Sheriff’s Department wasn’t the only agency to have trouble implementing the measures recommended in his commission’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. But many of the sweeping changes recommended for schools have not been put into effect, with school administrators saying they are planning more effective measures.

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

A debate over the hotline brought in the Nation of Islam.

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At a news conference held by the Antelope Valley Coalition for Racial Healing, the Islamic group’s Western regional director, Tony Muhammad, showed up with a 30-man security force to press Palmdale Mayor James C. Ledford for the 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.

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

He said Palmdale also hopes to develop “information ambassadors” who can speak at schools or to community groups about hate crimes and can 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.”