A speaker card submitted by Wayne Spindler depicted a burning cross, a body dangling from a tree and an apparent Ku Klux Klan figure holding a sign labeling Wesson with the racially charged ‘N’ word
By Matt Hamilton, Emily Alpert Reyes and David Zahniser | Los Angeles Times | May 19, 2016
An outspoken critic of the Los Angeles City Council has been arrested after police say he submitted a public-comment card that depicted a burning cross, a body dangling from a tree and an apparent Ku Klux Klan figure holding a sign labeling Council President Herb Wesson with a racially charged epithet.
Wayne Spindler, an Encino-based attorney, was taken into custody Friday and booked on a felony count of making a criminal threat, said Officer Jane Kim of the Los Angeles Police Department.
Spindler, 46, was released after posting $75,000 bond and is scheduled to appear in court on June 10, according to online jail records. He did not return a message seeking comment.
Investigators with the LAPD’s Threat Management Unit reviewed the comment card that was submitted during the May 11 meeting of the Rules, Elections, Intergovernmental Relations and Neighborhoods Committee, Kim confirmed. Wesson is chairman of the committee.
Police determined that the actions shown in the drawing on the card warranted taking Spindler into custody, Kim said.
The L.A. County district attorney's office confirmed Thursday that prosecutors are reviewing the case against Spindler and evaluating whether to file charges, according to Jane Robison, spokeswoman for the office.
The card, which shows it was submitted by “Wayne from Encino,” was scanned and published online with other public comment cards from the meeting. In blue marker, the card depicts a Ku Klux Klan figure holding a sign that states, “Herb = [n-word].” The KKK figure also appears to be holding a noose.
Vanessa Rodriguez, a spokeswoman for Wesson, said Wednesday that the councilman had no immediate comment about the incident.
Next to the KKK figure is an image of a body apparently dangling from a tree by a noose, evocative of the lynching of blacks in the 19th and 20th centuries.
Wesson, the first African American to serve as the City Council president, directly addressed the contents of the comment card near the end of the committee meeting, which was held in Van Nuys. Spindler had testified multiple times before council members that day.
“He calls me the N-word and has [an image] of me hanging from a tree,” Wesson told the audience. “So I just want to go on record to make sure that the city attorney’s office knows that this idiot has done what he’s done. Not man enough to say that to come up to my face and say something like that.”
When Spindler began to respond from the audience, Wesson instructed the sergeants to “show him the way out,” according to audio of the meeting.
“You get out. You get out,” Wesson said. “Nobody’s threatening you. You just need to treat people respectfully, and you don’t know how to do that.”
But Wesson told the Los Angeles Sentinel, which first reported on the incident, that Spindler’s behavior had caused him to have “serious concerns about my safety, my family’s safety, my staff’s safety and the safety of my colleagues on the City Council.”
Spindler, who sometimes refers to himself as “Wayne from Encino,” has had a long history of outrageous behavior during council meetings, Councilman Paul Koretz said. But the use of a stick-figure drawing of a lynching on a speaker card, combined with a racial slur, took things into new territory, Koretz added.
“It’s offensive enough that this guy wears Ku Klux Klan hoods with large swastikas drawn on them and will stand in the aisle and do a Sieg Heil and a salute,” said Koretz, the son of a Holocaust survivor. “But this is reaching a point where one wonders if he isn’t a real danger.”
Councilman Marqueece Harris-Dawson, one of three African American members of the council, said the drawing of the noose was unprecedented and a "direct communication of an act of violence.”
The councilman, who represents parts of South L.A., said that for his own safety he tries to never be alone in City Hall. He has advised his staff members not to take the stairwells alone, he added.
“You turn a corner and one of these guys is standing there. You don’t know what you’re going to get,” Harris-Dawson said.
Two years ago, the City Council agreed to pay $215,000 to settle a free-speech lawsuit filed by a Venice resident who said city leaders had violated his constitutional rights by ejecting him from a commission meeting. Michael Hunt, who is black, had worn a Ku Klux Klan hood and a T-shirt featuring a profanity and a racial slur used to describe African Americans.
In the wake of that settlement, a handful of speakers increasingly rely on coarse language — sometimes racially offensive, other times sexually explicit — while testifying before council members.
Spindler frequently uses the F-word. Another speaker references a derogatory description of immigrant workers during each of her council appearances. A third has yelled an anti-gay slur from the speaker’s podium.
City Councilwoman Nury Martinez, the only woman on the council, said she respects the right to free speech but has been frustrated by the racist, sexist and profane language that is frequently spewed during public comment. She said she was especially troubled by the rants that followed a recent City Hall presentation about sexual violence.
“It’s not constructive. They’re not disagreeing with items on the agenda," Martinez said. "All you’re doing is offending.”
Spindler also routinely attends Los Angeles Police Commission meetings. At the police commission, he sometimes wears a white hood and delivers charged remarks.
At the L.A. County Board of Supervisors weekly meetings, Spindler has signed up as “Adolf Hitler” and has on at least one occasion called Supervisor Mark Ridley-Thomas an “Uncle Tom” during public comments.
EDITORS NOTE: To me it’s crystal clear that Wayne Spindler is a real nutcase. What he put on his speaker’s card is very offensive and utterly outrageous. But even nutjobs are entitled to freedom of expression under our Constitution.
Charging Spindler with a felony count of making a criminal threat seems like a stretch to me. I do not see where he actually made any threats with his disgusting depictions. Of course, it’s all in the eye of the beholder.
Spindler belongs in Babbling Brook Farms for some serious head shrinking, not in jail.
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