Blacks Fear Growth of Hate in a New Antelope Valley : Crime: Authorities are looking closely at a band of 80 to 100 skinheads blamed for several racial incidents.

Stanton Roberts had just parked his blue Honda Civic in front of Antelope Valley High School after returning from a nearby basketball game when he heard gunfire. The car’s windows shattered. He was bleeding.

So was his friend, Clarence Davis, 17, who was sitting in the passenger seat next to him. Both had been grazed by bullets. In the back, Eric Dooley, 20, and his year-old daughter were cut by broken glass. Roberts, 19, managed to drive to Antelope Valley Hospital Medical Center, where all four African Americans were treated for minor injuries.

Three skinheads from a local white supremacist gang called the Peckerwoods had allegedly fired six shots into the car on the afternoon of Feb. 21 for no other reason than the occupants’ race, police said.

The skinheads sped off in a yellow Chevrolet Malibu, triggering a citywide search, an investigation by the hate crime division of the district attorney’s office and an inquiry by the Lancaster office of the FBI.

Authorities are now taking a closer look at an unorganized band of 80 to 100 skinheads whom the Antelope Valley branch of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People blames for several racial incidents in Palmdale and Lancaster since the beginning of the year.

Shortly after the Feb. 21 shooting outside the high school, thanks to a student who scribbled down the car’s license number, police arrested Robert Garland Jr., 21, of Lancaster; Robert Andrew Jones, 20, of Gardena, and Chris Parker, 18, of Lancaster.

All three are in custody and have pleaded not guilty to charges of attempted murder, commission of a hate crime and child endangerment. A preliminary hearing is scheduled April 10.

Police say their gang and a Peckerwood sect called the Nazi Low Riders both believe in white supremacy and have demonstrated their hatred toward minorities in violent acts.

“The gangs here have increased immensely over the years,” said Sheriff’s Deputy Charles Ingram, the lead investigator in the shooting, who said his office has had “several incidents” with the Peckerwoods.

But the drive-by that shattered Roberts’ car windows also shattered any semblance of a feeling of safety that many African Americans thought they had found when they left the violence of Los Angeles to settle in the Antelope Valley. Ironically, white flight drove many of their new neighbors to the same place.

The shooting was the most disturbing racial incident some here say they have ever encountered, prompting black pastors and politicians to warn their congregations and constituents that racism is alive and growing in this remote, high desert area.

“Without a doubt, this is one of the ugliest hate-crime incidents that I’ve seen in recent years,” said Rev. Henry Hearns, Lancaster’s only African American city councilman and pastor of First Baptist Church in Littlerock.

“I think it is a wake-up call to the community and the churches. We cannot sit by,” Hearns said. “It’s a wake-up call to law enforcement. They are going to have to be sensitive to these issues. . . . In our school system, they are going to have to teach diversity.”

Sheriff’s Deputy Chris Haymond, a gang expert with the Antelope Valley Sheriff’s Station, said his staff first identified the Peckerwoods in 1989.

“I see a slight increase,” Haymond said, “and hopefully that will take a nose-dive soon.”

Authorities say Peckerwood is a moniker many supremacist organizations use. Peckerwood is a Southern term for woodpecker, and in Southern and Middle United States slang it also means “poor white.”

Haymond attributed the rise in membership to growing resentment of affirmative action and an influx of minorities to the Antelope Valley.

According to 1990 census statistics for Lancaster and Palmdale--the only two incorporated cities in the area--the African American population doubled in both cities since 1980.

Blacks comprised 7.2% of Lancaster’s 97,291 residents in 1990--compared to 3.3% of its population a decade earlier. In Palmdale, the number of blacks rose to 6% in 1990 from 3% in 1980, out of a population of 68,839.

Similarly, the number of Latinos more than doubled in those cities between 1980 and 1990--to 22% for Palmdale and 15% for Lancaster.

New estimates place the Antelope Valley’s population at 332,000, and regional planners expect the number of minorities--especially Latinos--to continue rising.

“A lot of the white kids are saying (affirmative action) is not fair, and all of them feel like they’re getting the short end of the stick,” Haymond said. “I think when you came up here 10 years ago there were a lot less minorities.”

Haymond said the white supremacist gangs are composed largely of older teen-agers, with some of the oldest members usually in their early twenties. The skinheads tend to be secretive, but often members are given away by tattoos sporting hate slogans, he said.

“Just because someone has a shaved head doesn’t classify them as a skinhead,” Haymond said. “You have to look for other indicators--swastikas, white-power slogans.

“They’re not like street gangs,” he continued. “They don’t claim territory. A lot of their crimes are drug-related and race-related.”

Glendale Police Sgt. Lief Nicolaisen, an expert on white supremacist organizations who is familiar with the Peckerwoods, said that for now the group is not sophisticated and he does not view them as a serious threat.

“On a (good) day they may have trouble tying their shoes. Occasionally, a few of them might conspire to do something. Every now and then you might have a low-level, organized beating.”

Members usually have a criminal history, said Roni Blau, director of the San Fernando Valley office of the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith, a watchdog group that has been monitoring the Peckerwoods.

“They believe in white supremacy, she said. “They have a deep-seated hatred for Jews, blacks and Asians.”

Blau said in the past the skinheads openly admitted their affiliation, but with recent investigations by law enforcement they are more hesitant.

“Besides Peckerwoods, they go by ‘Wood,’ ‘100% Wood’ and ‘Regular White,’ ” she said.

Sheriff’s deputies assigned to the Antelope Valley’s five high schools said they know of the gangs, but say they have had few problems with them on campuses. Area principals also said they have heard little about skinhead activity in general.

But Lynda Thompson Taylor, president of the Antelope Valley branch of the NAACP, and others who are familiar with the Peckerwoods say the schools are exactly where authorities should focus attention.

“We want to go into the high schools specifically, because the gangs tend to be made up of students in the high schools,” Taylor said.

Two years ago, flyers urging whites to join the White Aryan Resistance were found in 12-packs of beer at supermarkets in Palmdale. Last year, there were two hate crimes documented by the sheriff’s station. So far this year, the February drive-by is the only incident that has been officially classified as racially motivated.

Taylor, however, says the shooting was not the first hate crime this year. Five others have occurred since January, she said, including an incident in which young African Americans were jumped and another in which a car was damaged by men who the owners claim were skinheads.

Taylor said the complaints her office receives are not always characterized by the local sheriff’s station as racially motivated.

“We want to keep focused on it and to report these incidents and to make sure they are reported properly,” she said.

Capt. Tony Welch, who oversees the local sheriff’s station, said his office has been diligent in unearthing such crimes. If an attack is race-related, it is treated accordingly, he said.

Welch attended a recent NAACP town meeting after the drive-by shooting, where he and other law enforcement officials told residents about the proper steps to take in reporting a hate crime.

Authorities say an incident is categorized as a hate crime if it is motivated by a victim’s race, religion or sex. Racial slurs would also cause an incident to be classified that way, Haymond said.

But Taylor and other minorities say the Antelope Valley Sheriff’s Station is not treating their reports with urgency. The drive-by shooting was so overt, however, that it could not be ignored, many residents say.

“A lot of parents are feeling unsafe,” Taylor said. “There’s a lot of discrimination they feel, and they feel like they’re not welcome. They thought this was the ideal location to bring their kids.”

Consula Williams, 28, an African American resident of Palmdale, was recently paid a visit by the Lancaster office of the FBI, after her four cousins were attacked by a Palmdale group of Peckerwoods as they walked home from Hillview Middle School on Feb. 17, authorities investigating the case said. Two carloads of youths chased the children, snatching a backpack from one.

“The kids have said, ‘I don’t want to go to school because skinheads are going to come after me,’ ” Williams said. As the skinheads taunted them, they flashed white-power signs, crossing their two middle fingers to form a W, she said.

Haymond, who is investigating the incident for the Sheriff’s Department, said authorities have not yet identified the attackers. Although Haymond said as many as 10 skinheads were involved, the case has not been classified as a hate crime.

The children usually walk past a trailer park, where authorities believe many of the skinheads gather. Across from it is a bus stop where swastikas and white-power slogans are painted.

Allan Sacks, assistant superintendent for the Westside Union School District, said he and other school administrators believe the attackers were older teen-agers and may have come from nearby Palmdale High School.

But Sacks said the district is waiting for reports from the sheriff’s station before determining whether the incident was racially motivated. Before the attack, the children had been involved in fistfights with classmates who claimed they were relatives of skinheads and yelled racial slurs, Williams said.

Hillview Principal Paul Brunner is planning to begin cultural sensitivity training for teachers at the school after meeting with Williams and Taylor, he said.

“We also discussed making sure that all ethnic groups were represented in whatever types of activities, that they feel comfortable with their surroundings and that they have role models they can emulate,” Sacks said.

For the time being, though, Williams said, she will continue driving the children to and from school.

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Racial Attacks

There have been several incidents in the Antelope Valley in recent months that victims believe were racially motivated. Police attribute some skinhead gang membership as a backlash to a rising minority population. According to census figures, the African American and Latino populations have increased significantly in the Antelope Valley in the past decade.

1980 1990 1993 1994 PALMDALE 18,050 68,839 89,717 98,314 LANCASTER 47,882 97,291 107,675 115,524

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Ethnicity

PALMDALE LANCASTER 1980 1990 1980 1990 White 84% 67% 86% 73% Latino 9% 22% 7% 15% African American 3% 6% 3% 7% Other 4% 5% 4% 5%

Source: U.S. Census Bureau and individual cities