A Crime of Hate in Laguna Hills : Dark clouds of bigotry casting their shadows out to newest suburbs

Some victims may take modest comfort in hearing crime prevention officers explain that burglars usually have no quarrel with their targets and are looking only for quick cash. But when a black man and his family returned to their dream house in Laguna Hills last week, they found a racial epithet spray-painted alongside the staircase, a chandelier hauled down on an antique oak table and tens of thousands of dollars worth of other destruction. What could be said to address their special sense of violation?

Racism and intolerance have no place anywhere, least of all at a family’s doorstep. But in Westminster two summers ago, a black family was awakened by a burning cross on their front lawn, the consummate symbol of racial intolerance in America. Southeast Asian immigrants have been victims of prejudice ever since arriving on these shores after the Vietnam War. Amber Jefferson’s face was ripped open in August. Earlier this month, vandalism was committed in the home of an Anaheim gay-rights activist.

So where are we today? Officials say they are worried that hate crimes are spreading to the newest suburbs, like dark clouds shadowing the spread of the suburban dream. Orange County has increasingly urbanized, and in the process has been transformed from a virtually all-white enclave to a place with real ethnic mix. But the Sheriff’s Department says the break-in at the De Silva home was the first hate crime it has investigated in the southern part of the county. So last week’s incident stood as a regrettable milestone on the police blotter.

Tuesday, the county Human Relations Commission held a news conference with religious and community leaders to deplore what had happened. Crimes that are sparked by bigotry, like this one, can and should be prosecuted as felonies.

And the public must resolve to root out racism wherever it shows itself--in the workplace, the neighborhood or along a victimized family’s stairwell in Laguna Hills.