Antelope Valley Human Relations Commission

This story appeared in the Antelope Valley Press
Friday, July 31, 2009.

By DAISY RATZLAFF
Valley Press Staff Writers

PALMDALE – Racial and ethnic slugs, profanity and the phrase “white pride” were spray-painted in black letters on doors, walls and windows at Wildflower Elementary School in an apparent hate crime, sheriff’s officials said.

Graffiti was found on 90% of the walls of the school’s main building and of classroom bungalows when custodians arrived early Thursday at the campus on 35th Street East north of Avenue R, sheriff’s deputies said.

“I first saw the graffiti on the doors and then I saw the rest,” said custodian Roger Brown, who added he found the damage hard to believe. “I was like, ‘Holy moly.’ ”

Added Jesse Brunell, who works with Brown: “We are just blessed that they didn’t get the front of the school. I guess we can be thankful for that.”

Deputies believe the vandals entered the campus, which is closed for summer vacation, either from a dirt field off Avenue R or off 35th Street East overnight. Based on the lettering, deputies said they believe the vandalism was the work of more than one person.

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Tags: Graffiti, Hate, Vandalism by admin
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This story appeared in the Antelope Valley Press
Tuesday, July 29, 2008.

By DAISY RATZLAFF
Valley Press Staff Writer

LANCASTER – A Lancaster man’s pickup truck was vandalized twice over the weekend in an apparent hate crime that caused an estimated $9,000 worth of damage, officials said.

Obscenities and a racial slur were scratched and marked Saturday morning and Sunday afternoon on the front, back and sides of a 2007 pickup truck parked in a westside home driveway.

“The first incident was done early Saturday morning. They came and scratched my truck so bad it created $6,000 worth of damage,” said the man, a retiree, who asked not to be identified.

“And then they came back on Sunday in broad daylight and did another $3,000 worth of damage by scratching more words into the side of my truck. It is so bad that it got to the metal part of the truck.”

The Lancaster man, who has lived in the Antelope Valley since 1981, said he had never experienced such a crime that hit so close to home.

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Tags: Graffiti, Hate, Vandalism by admin
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CLEANING UP – Contract worker Carmen Lopez paints over graffiti Tuesday on one of two houses on Armfield Avenue off of Rancho Vista Boulevard (Avenue P) in Palmdale. Sheriff’s officials are classifying the vandalism as a hate crime due to the racial content of the graffiti. EVELYN KRISTO/Valley Press

This story appeared in the Antelope Valley Press
Wednesday, July 9, 2008.

By DAISY RATZLAFF
Valley Press Staff Writer

PALMDALE – Two westside homes were vandalized with graffiti overnight Monday in an apparent hate crime, sheriff’s officials said Tuesday.

Words of hate and racial slurs covered the front walls of the two vacant homes on Armfield Avenue off of Rancho Vista Boulevard (Avenue P), across from the Antelope Valley Mall.

One of the homes had recently been vacated, neighbor Prista Wood said.

“We had someone live in the orange house. He was black and she was Iranian, but you never saw them. And the people that rented it after them were black. They moved out a couple months ago,” Wood said. “And the other people in the other (vacant) home just moved out last Sunday, but they were white.”

The two homes are separated by a third house, authorities aid.

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Tags: Graffiti, Hate, Vandalism by admin
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This story appeared in the Antelope Valley Press
Friday, December 14, 2007.

By AMIRA SEYOUM
Valley Press Staff Writer

LANCASTER – A 15-year-old former Knight High School student pleaded no contest in return for three years’ probation in connection with a September 2006 attack by a group of black youths on two Latino teenagers walking home from the school.

Mark Broussard III, who was being prosecuted as an adult on hate crime allegations and felony assault charges, was offered three years’ felony probation at Thursday’s preliminary hearing if he pleaded guilty. He pleaded no contest, which is equivalent to a guilty plea in criminal court but cannot be used against him in a civil case.

Broussard was ordered to stay away from the two victims, who watched the proceedings in a Lancaster courtroom. He is expected to be ordered to pay restitution to the victims and to the state, but the amount hasn’t been established, officials said.

Judge Christopher Estes explained to Broussard that if he violates the terms of probation before the sentencing hearing Jan. 11 the agreement will be thrown out.

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Tags: Hate, Hearing, Hearings/Trials/Justice, Racism by admin
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From the FBI website:

11/19/07

Last Tuesday, a 22-year-old white supremacist named Gabriel Laskey was sentenced for his role in a hateful attack on Temple Beth Israel, a Jewish synagogue in Eugene, Oregon.

A few years earlier, Laskey, his brother Jacob, and two other men had thrown rocks etched with swastikas through the stained glass windows of the temple, right in the middle of religious services. You can just imagine how the peaceful worshippers felt.

It’s just one recent example of a hate crime—traditional offenses like vandalism, arson, or even murder motivated by various forms of prejudice that not only impact individuals and families but often escalate fear and tension across communities. . .

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Tags: Hate, Statistics by admin
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By MICHAEL J. SNIFFEN, Associated Press Writer
Mon Nov 19, 6:45 PM ET

(This article appeared in the Antelope Valley Press November 20, 2007, on page B2)

WASHINGTON – Hate crime incidents rose nearly 8 percent last year, the FBI reported Monday, as civil rights advocates increasingly take to the streets to protest what they call official indifference to intimidation and attacks against blacks and other minorities.

Police across the nation reported 7,722 criminal incidents in 2006 targeting victims or property as a result of bias against a race, religion, sexual orientation, ethnic or national origin or physical or mental disability. That was up 7.8 percent from 7,163 incidents reported in 2005.

More than half the incidents were motivated by racial prejudice, but the report did not even pick up all the racially motivated incidents last year.

Although the noose incidents and beatings among students at Jena, La., high school occurred in the last half of 2006, they were not included in the report. Only 12,600 of the nation’s more than 17,000 local, county, state and federal police agencies participated in the hate crime reporting program in 2006 and neither Jena nor LaSalle Parish, in which the town is located, were among the agencies reporting.

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Tags: Hate, Statistics by admin
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According to a report by Leo Stallworth of ABC Channel 7 News:

PALMDALE, Oct. 19, 2007 – Messages of hate were left in one local neighborhood — leaflets, showing a hangman’s noose and the letters KKK.

The FBI has joined the search for whoever is responsible.

The leaflets were found in a Palmdale neighborhood that is home to many African Americans. It’s also near a high school that was the scene of a controversial incident recently, involving racial allegations.

You can read the entire report here.

Tags: Darren Parker, Hate, Racism by Michele Chavez
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