Supremacists Arrested in School Strife : Crime: Threats and violence against blacks at Ventura High lead to four youths being taken into custody, police say. A consultant has been contacted.

Threats and violence against several black students and a guard at Ventura High School have led to the arrest of four teen-agers described by police as white supremacists, and school district administrators have called in a consultant to ease racial strife, authorities said Thursday.

The arrests came after two incidents. One, on Jan. 26, involved racial taunting of black students and a threat to a black school guard; the other, on Feb. 4, involved a fistfight between black and white youths. Both incidents occurred at Ventura High basketball games.

Another fistfight between a black student and a white student near campus is still being investigated and could lead to another arrest, police said.

In the Jan. 26 incident, two 16-year-old black students were surrounded by half a dozen white youths shouting racial slurs, police said. As faculty members and a black security guard stepped in, one of the white suspects threatened to retrieve a gun and shoot the guard, authorities said.

Police arrested three teen-agers in the incident, none of whom attend Ventura High.

Harold Cecil Lassiter, 18, faces a felony charge of threatening a school official, with a special allegation that the threat was racially motivated. He also faces a misdemeanor charge of disturbing the peace at a school with offensive language, said Deputy Dist. Atty. Don Grant.

Of the two 15-year-old males arrested, one was cited and released to his parents, while the other is being held in Juvenile Hall for violating his probation in another case.

Lassiter, whom Grant described as a “skinhead, white supremacist type,” is being held in County Jail in lieu of $5,000 bail. He is scheduled to appear for a preliminary hearing Feb. 18.

The Feb. 4 incident occurred when a white Ventura High student made racial comments to a black football player, then started a fistfight, according to Ventura Police Sgt. Carl Handy.

The football player fought back until police broke up the fight. The white student was arrested and treated at a hospital for cuts on his face, then released to his parents.

Both students received a three-day suspension, which ended Wednesday. But the football player has not returned to school and has applied for a transfer to Buena High. He said he no longer feels safe on the Ventura High campus, where only 50 of the 1,750 students are black.

“When I’m at the bus stop, catching the bus home, guys will drive by yelling all their racial slurs and stuff,” he said.

Parents of some of the black students said the incidents are signs of more widespread racism on campus--signs that the district does not seem to recognize, they said.

“Anyone there would say there is a policy of zero tolerance for racism,” said the mother of a 16-year-old black student who was involved in the Jan. 26 incident. “If that were the case, something like this never would have happened on school property at a school function.

“This is not uncommon,” she said. “That’s the problem.”

But Joseph Spirito, superintendent of the Ventura Unified School District, said Friday he is not convinced that the fistfight was racially motivated or that there is a serious problem of racial harassment on campus.

“That’s the million-dollar question,” he said. “I’m trying to ascertain . . . whether or not this is to be viewed as a racial problem or two kids who have had an altercation and they happen to be black and white.”

Ventura High Principal Jerry Barshay said the incidents should not be seen as flowing from the school, but from society as a whole.

“It’s in our community, in our world, and it spills into a high school campus,” he said. “It’s not manufactured on a campus, it comes into a campus.”

To evaluate racial attitudes and tension at Ventura High, the district has contacted Santa Barbara attorney Judy Rubenstein, whom Spirito described as an expert in conflict resolution and issues of prejudice. Spirito said he plans to meet Tuesday with Rubenstein and possibly with members of the Anti-Defamation League’s Woodland Hills office. Following that meeting, Rubenstein may meet with Ventura High students, he said.

In addition, Ventura police officials said they plan to maintain a high profile on campus and at sporting events over the next few weeks.

But several Ventura High students contacted after school Thursday question whether the police, or a consultant, can do much to change attitudes on campus.

Freshman Andrea McFadden said she has been surprised at how often she hears racist comments from fellow students.

“We thought high school was supposed to be better--with opportunity and everything,” she said, “but it seems like it’s worse.”