Swastikas in Montrose? 

The Crescenta Valley unfortunately is no stranger to controversy over swastikas. We had a few pre-WWII American Nazi rallies in Crescenta Valley Park, then known as Hindenburg Park. Those rallies featured a 10-foot-tall swastika sculpture and faux-Nazi uniforms were worn by participants. As well, all the German cultural festivals that took place in the late 1930s flew the German national flag of that era, which had a swastika on it. Folks find the photos taken during those celebrations very disturbing. 

Then there are the infamous “swastika lampposts” on some of the streets below the Montrose Shopping Park. Those metal lampposts feature, at thebase, a decorative band of swastika-looking designs. They were installed in the 1920s, before the symbol became infamous. Every once in a while, someone notices the lamppost swastikas for the first time and they freak out, making city officials scramble.

But just after Memorial Day weekend in 1988, Montrose fell victim to swastikas again. Merchants and shoppers awoke after the holiday weekend to find business windows, parking meters and lampposts on four blocks of North Verdugo just below Honolulu Avenue plastered with stickers that had both swastikas and racial insults printed on them. Montrose Park was hit with the stickers too. The stickers said things like “White power,” “Death to race mixing,” and “N______s get out. Go back to your slums. N.S.W.A.P.” (National Socialist White American Party) It was a shock to a normally quiet community. People were upset.

A couple of days later the case was accidentally solved. A Glendale police officer noticed a car pulled into the gas station down at Mountain Avenue and Verdugo Road. The driver didn’t yield to a pedestrian, so the officer pulled in next to the car. He saw one of the six people in the car holding an open beer and there were other open beers in the center console, so he pulled them out of the car. The officer characterized the group as “skinheads,” a far-right subculture of that era who typically shaved their heads and wore working class clothing and heavy boots. Five of the group were underage; they were taken into custody and released to their parents. But the sixth skinhead was 18, so he was arrested for having an open container.

When the officer searched the car, he found a number of the stickers that had been put up in Montrose along with some hate fliers. When the skinhead was booked, it was found his fingerprints matched those that were taken from a sticker in Montrose. At that point he was charged with racial terrorism with a max penalty of a year in jail.

The skinhead’s mom defended her son to the press, saying that he had just fallen in with the wrong crowd. She claimed that he had not been the main offender in placing the stickers and that the police were just looking for a fall guy. She said he had vowed to get a job and finish high school, maybe even join the service.

When the case went to trial, it came out that the arrested skinhead was not the one holding the open container. The judge ruled that the arrest for being underage with an open container was not valid. Therefore, the search of the car that led to the discovery of the stickers was an illegal search. There was no probable cause for the search. The Fourth Amendment of the Constitution states that any evidence found during an illegal search is inadmissible in court. Therefore, the charges of racial terrorism were dropped and the defendant was released with an admonition from the judge to “think about his choice of friends.” 

The ruling was appealed but since I found no further info on the case, we can assume the appeal was denied. Frustrating, but that’s how the system works. I doubt the young skinhead changed much from this experience.