Skinheads Deface Montrose in 1988

The Montrose Shopping Park is a beautiful oasis in a crazy world. Its tree-lined streets evoke a classic hometown feel. We know Montrose as a quiet and gentle place where nothing bad ever happens. But in 1988, a little bit of ugliness visited Montrose.

On Tuesday morning after a Memorial Day weekend, business owners and early shoppers were shocked to find stickers strewn through Montrose displaying a large swastika and offensive slogans. The stickers were placed on lampposts, parking meters and business windows in Montrose, and were found in several locations in Montrose Park. Printed on the swastika stickers were hateful messages such as “White power,” “Death to race mixing” and “N______s get out! Go back to your slums” along with the initials N.S.W.A.P., which stood for National Socialist White American Party.

It wasn’t expected that any culprits would ever be found and it was assumed that the crime would go unsolved. But on Thursday afternoon, a Glendale PD motorcycle officer got lucky. He was following a vehicle that had failed to yield to a pedestrian. That car, filled with rough-looking teens, had just pulled into the gas station on the corner of Verdugo Road and Mountain Avenue near Glendale College. The motorcycle officer followed it in and pulled up next to it. The policeman looked over and spotted two open beers in the center console cupholder. He hit the red lights and pulled six teenagers out of the car.

Backup was called and a search of the car found several stickers in the trunk – the same swastika stickers that had defaced Montrose a few days earlier. Five of the kids were underage – 15 to 17 years old – but one kid in the backseat was an adult, 18 years old. One was from Glendale and the rest were from Orange County. They were self-described “skinheads,” White power advocates who defined themselves by shaving their heads. They were all arrested for the open containers and on suspicion of vandalism. The kids under 18 were all released to their parents but the 18-year-old was held on $5000 bail.

Fingerprints from the 18-year-old matched those found on one of the stickers, so it looked like a slam-dunk for the prosecution. Because of the shocking nature of the racist stickers, the 18-year-old offender was facing more than just vandalism charges. He was charged under a law often referred to as the “Synagogue Desecration Statute.” It prohibits demonstrations or the posting of literature meant to terrorize people and it carried a maximum one-year sentence.

In the newspapers by the next week the offender’s parents had rushed to their son’s defense. They described him as a straight-A student who had started hanging out with bad kids.

“He’s just a kid [who] got into the wrong crowd,” his mom said. His parents said their son had made the decision to leave the skinheads, find a job, finish high school and perhaps join the service. They further said that it was the other kids in the car who were the main offenders (although none of the juveniles was ever charged).

But with the offender’s fingerprints matching prints on the stickers in Montrose, the 18-year-old seemed to be headed for a conviction. The trial came up later that year in Glendale Municipal Court.

However, justice was not served. The offender’s lawyer was sharp enough to get the charges dropped on a technicality. The lawyer argued that since her client was in the back seat of the car and the open containers were in the front center console, technically the front seat, the officer should not have arrested the guy for possessing an open container. The judge agreed. Since his fingerprints were taken after what was deemed an illegal arrest those fingerprints could no longer be submitted as evidence.

The case was destroyed.

The district attorney said he would appeal the ruling but a search of newspaper files gives no further info. We can assume that the D.A. declined to pursue the case or that the ruling was upheld.