FREMONT, Aug 27, 2004
Melissa Evans
The Argus

The same day that The Argus reported a series of incidents in which paint balls were shot at the home of a Sikh family, the home was vandalized again, family members said Thursday.

The vandals ducked under bushes to avoid being spotted by surveillance cameras that Upinder Gupta Kaur and her husband, Semerjit Singh, installed this week.

"It was the same thing. The same sequence of events, the same color," Kaur said. "They have done it very calculatively, even knowing where the cameras are."

It's the fourth time in a month her home has been sprayed by green paint balls, she said, and the family's two cars also were scratched with a key on Aug. 6.

They and local civil rights activists accuse police of dragging their feet on the investigation. Kaur claims she knows the culprit, a neighborhood teenager who has harassed her son because he wears a turban.

Without evidence, however, police can't make an arrest, said Detective Bill Veteran, police department spokesman. Two officers are assigned to the case, and an officer was sent to interview the teenager Thursday afternoon, Veteran said.

The offenders could face misdemeanor charges of vandalism.

"We have policies and procedures outlined by California statute that we have to follow," he said. "We can't go and arrest every kid in the neighborhood."

But Kaur said she can positively identify one of three teenagers she saw running from her yard the second time the vandalism occurred on Aug. 1. Officer Wanda Roland questioned the teenager and his father, who agreed to apologize and clean up the mess, according to the police report.

The father, however, never showed up after his son convinced him he was innocent, according to the police report.

One of the teenagers who said he was present the night of Aug. 1 called The Argus on Wednesday -- when the newspaper first reported the story -- and emphatically denied any involvement. He said he and the two others ran from the scene because "some woman came chasing after us yelling things in another language.

"Do you have any idea how scary that is?" the 16-year-old said.

The founder of the Fremont-based Interfaith Freedom Foundation, a group that fights for religious liberty, wants outside agencies to intervene. Larry Swaim said Fremont police have been too hesitant to label this a hate crime.

Veteran said the department "hasn't discounted the fact that it could be (a hate crime). We won't know until we get someone in custody." _1