Plea’Not guilty’ in hate crime

A Huntington Beach man pleaded not guilty Monday in an alleged hate crime committed in Costa Mesa on Friday, according to the Orange County District Attorney’s office.

Ronald Bray, 25, faces felony charges of making racially spurred criminal threats and of threatening to commit a violent crime. He also is charged with battery, a misdemeanor. .

Bray allegedly punched a man in the face and spat on him in what police called a hate crime outside a Costa Mesa 7-Eleven convenience store early Friday.

A black man in a wheelchair was leaving the store at East Mesa Verde Drive and Harbor Boulevard at 2:20 a.m. when witnesses saw a white man call him “racially-charged names,” punch him in the face, then spit on him, Costa Mesa Police Sgt. Marty Carver said.

The police were called, and, initially, the man who was punched didn’t want to be involved. Witnesses encouraged him to cooperate with police, and he eventually decided to press charges against the alleged attacker.

Police arrested Bray on suspicion of assault. Bray, whom police identified as a white supremacist, also has several parole violations, Carver said, according to the police report. It’s unknown what Bray was doing in Costa Mesa.

This is the third reported hate crime in Costa Mesa this year. A recent study by the Orange County Human Relations Commission stated that hate crimes in the county were unchanged from 2004 to 2005. Blacks are the third-most-targeted group in Orange County, the study said. The majority of hate crimes and incidents in the county stemmed from multiple motivators.

Last year, Huntington Beach Police reported 34 hate crimes and incidents, most of which were vandalisms. There were three threats and nine assaults reported, according to Huntington Beach Police.

Unless Costa Mesa requests, the Huntington Beach Police will most likely stay out of Bray’s case, except to see if he fits a physical description or the crime is similar to an open case in Huntington, Lt. Craig Junginger said.

Several white supremacist gangs operate in Costa Mesa, Carver said.

Bray is scheduled for a preliminary hearing July 21 in Harbor Justice Center in Newport Beach.