It has been widely reported that a Los Alamitos Caucasian woman with mixed race children had her car vandalized this past Wednesday. The vandalism involved spray painting racial epithets on the car. Coming on top of the recent racial scandal which caused the Los Alamitos Mayor to resign his Council seat, some bloggers are starting to refer to Los Al as the Racism Capitol of the West. Your Editors decided to dig a little deeper and conducted an exclusive interview with the Los Alamitos Police captain handling the crime.

One of the items sprayed on the car was the initials NWOC, which according to Los Alamitos Police Captain Bruce McAlpine, "stands for Northwest Orange County Skins and is a white supremacist group with origins in the Rossmoor, Seal Beach, Los Alamitos and Huntington Beach area. This group has been in existence since the 1990's."

At this writing, the Police do not have any witnesses or suspects and the investigation is on going. Spray painted vandalism, even if racially motivated and repugnant as that is, might not be a serious item. If, on the other hand, there is a white supremacist group operating in West Orange County, that is a more serious matter.

McAlpine said "This was a group that began back in the 1990's. We haven't seen any activity from this group in many, many, recent years." He said he was not aware of any arrests related to this group, or specific examples of criminal activity, but they were still researching that possibility. He also did not know how many members the group might have or what types of activities in which they have been involved.

McAlpine said the group has "been classified as a white supremacist group." He added "Our detectives are looking into that as a possible investigative lead." Although other media outlets have reported that there was an incident where the N word was written on the sidewalk in the same area where the spray painting occurred, McAlpine said there have been no other hate crimes in Los Alamitos in recent years.

Your Editors asked McAlpine if he thought there was a white supremacist group operating in our area, or if this was more of a prankster type of crime. In response he said "I think it's too early to tell. That's why our detectives are going to be investigating it. We'll have to see where our investigation leads us."

Since police records going back into the 1990's have been purged, McAlpine told your Editors that the police got their information on NWOC from the anti-defamation league web site (click here to go to that site). That site includes the following statement:
"Northwest Orange Skins (NWOC)
The Northwest Orange Skins is primarily based in Huntington Beach, Seal Beach, Los Alamitos, and Cypress. The group was active in the 90's, at which time many of their members were sent to jail or prison. Activity has recently increased, as many members have finished probation and parole periods. They also seem to be growing in size. The group has been associated with a high level of criminal activity."

The web site gives no source or other details regarding this statement and nobody at their offices could be reached for elaboration. McAlpine stressed that the police investigation is in process and they have not reached any conclusions as yet.