Man Admits Racist Action Against Black

A 45-year-old Glendale man accused of placing a racially derogatory note on the apartment door of a black resident pleaded no contest Wednesday to a misdemeanor charge of terrorism.

Jack Anthony Ferreira, who is white, was arrested by Glendale authorities Tuesday afternoon after he admitted taping a sign on a 39-year-old woman’s apartment door in the 200 block of North Maryland Avenue, said Sgt. Dean Durand.

He is scheduled to be sentenced May 1 in Glendale Municipal Court. If convicted he could receive a maximum sentence of a year in County Jail and a $5,000 fine.

“It is our department’s intention to vigorously pursue incidents of bias or hate crimes,” Glendale Police Chief David J. Thompson said in a written statement. “And it is this manner that we will proceed with any similar acts of racial-, ethnic-, religious- or minority-oriented crimes of bias, hatred or violence in our city.”

Last October, the City of Glendale formed a Human Rights Relations Council to investigate a series racial attacks, including racial epithets and swastikas scrawled on a black-owned delicatessen on Brand Boulevard. No arrests have been made in those attacks.

The city has been the subject of two separate lawsuits by police officers claiming racial discrimination within the Police Department.

In the first suit, a Latino officer charged the Police Department with racial discrimination for passing him over for promotions in favor of less-qualified Anglo officers. U. S. District Judge Dickran Tevrizian Jr. ordered the city to promote the officer to sergeant and pay him back wages at that rate from February, 1985. The city is appealing the decision.

In the second suit, a black officer alleged that he was the target of a concerted campaign of harassment after joining the department. The harassment intensified, the officer said, after he testified at the trial of the Latino officer’s allegations. The black officer’s case is pending.