Armenian Americans Say Los Angeles County Failed to Turn Anti-Hate Rhetoric Into Action

Three years after anti-Armenian hate material first appeared across parts of Los Angeles County, similar material has surfaced again in Glendale, raising renewed questions about prevention, representation and government accountability.

By Samantha Krause

Three years ago, Los Angeles County and Glendale officials were confronted with unmistakable evidence of anti-Armenian hate.

In March 2023, flyers carrying messages of hate and violence against Armenians were posted near St. Mary’s Armenian Church in Glendale. Glendale police opened an investigation into what they described as a possible hate crime targeting the Armenian Church and Armenian community. Similar anti-Armenian material had appeared elsewhere in Los Angeles County.

Government officials condemned it.

Community leaders demanded action.

Los Angeles County spoke about solidarity.

And Armenian-American advocates warned that condemning hate after it appeared was not the same thing as preventing it from happening again.

Now it has happened again.

In late August, derogatory anti-Armenian flyers were discovered near Glenoaks Elementary School in Glendale. Glendale police confirmed the incident and opened an investigation. Glendale Unified School District separately acknowledged that hate material targeting Armenians had been found in the neighborhood surrounding the elementary school.

Three years separate the two incidents.

That is more than enough time to ask a question Los Angeles County and Glendale should have been prepared to answer:

What changed?

The answer, based on the record, is not nearly enough.

Officials Were Not Merely Warned. They Were Brought Into the Room.

There is no credible argument that local officials did not understand the problem in 2023.

Following the first wave of flyers, Truth And Accountability League, or TAAL, organized the “Stand TAAL to Hate” Town Hall at Glendale Central Library in partnership with the Los Angeles County Commission on Human Relations’ LA vs Hate program.

The meeting was not symbolic.

It was specifically organized to discuss solutions to anti-Armenian racism, hate and propaganda.

Then-Glendale Mayor Daniel Brotman participated. Glendale Police Chief Manuel Cid participated. Los Angeles County Commission on Human Relations Executive Director Robin Toma participated. Representatives from the District Attorney’s Office and other public officials participated.

TAAL Founder and Chair Vic Gerami moderated the meeting and directly pressed officials about prevention.

The County itself promoted the event.

This was not a private complaint delivered quietly to government.

Los Angeles County was a partner.

Its Human Relations Commission was represented at the highest staff level.

Its officials heard the concerns firsthand.

The problem was placed directly in front of them.

During the town hall, Brotman referred to Armenians as a “niche” and spoke of Armenians “clawing” their way upward, language that was striking in Glendale, home to one of the largest Armenian communities outside Armenia.

But the most consequential part of the evening was not any single remark.

It was the challenge placed before government: What would officials do so Armenians would not be standing in another room discussing another hate incident years later?

Three years later, that question has acquired an uncomfortable relevance.

Los Angeles County Knew TAAL Was Doing the Work

The County cannot plausibly argue that TAAL was an unknown organization operating at the margins.

The documented relationship between TAAL, the Los Angeles County Commission on Human Relations and LA vs Hate continued well beyond the 2023 town hall.

County records show that the organizations collaborated on an “Armenians Against Hate” campaign. In 2024, Los Angeles County publicly promoted another TAAL campaign featuring prominent public figures as a partnership among TAAL, the Commission on Human Relations and LA vs Hate.

Toma himself publicly acknowledged the problem confronting Armenian Americans.

During the “Armenians Against Hate” campaign, he said discrimination and negative stereotyping experienced by Armenian Americans were too often understated because they were underreported.

Supervisor Kathryn Barger was equally explicit.

In connection with that campaign, Barger praised the partnership between TAAL and Los Angeles County, saying it demonstrated that the County was “stepping up to protect the rights of Armenians” and stood in solidarity with the Armenian community.

Those words are important now.

Because solidarity is easiest to proclaim when a campaign is launching and cameras are present.

Its value is tested afterward.

Then the Armenian Organization Disappeared From the Partnership

After two years as an LA vs Hate partner, TAAL was dropped.

That decision is at the center of the current dispute.

Gerami has said he sought an explanation repeatedly, sending close to ten emails, leaving telephone messages, contacting Toma directly by text and reaching out to Barger's office.

The original account states those efforts received no substantive response.

That silence is difficult to reconcile with the County’s earlier embrace of TAAL.

The same organization had been useful enough to partner with on a town hall.

Useful enough to collaborate with on public-service campaigns.

Useful enough for the County to promote publicly.

Useful enough for Barger to cite as evidence that Los Angeles County was protecting Armenian residents.

But when that Armenian-American organization was removed from the County’s flagship anti-hate partnership and sought an explanation, the communication apparently stopped.

That is not meaningful representation.

It is institutional inconsistency at best and disregard at worst.

Toma's Explanation Came Only After the Controversy Returned

Toma eventually responded after TAAL issued a public statement on Aug. 28 following the latest Glendale incident.

In that communication, he cited severe County budget shortfalls, cuts to the Human Relations Commission and the loss of nearly a quarter of its staff as reasons affecting the program.

Budget reductions are real. Staffing losses matter.

But they do not resolve the central issue.

If budget cuts caused TAAL's removal, why was that not explained when the organization was dropped?

Why did repeated efforts to obtain an explanation apparently go unanswered?

And most importantly, if financial constraints required reducing partnerships, what criteria determined which communities retained representation and which did not?

This raises a particularly serious question: organizations representing other racial, ethnic, religious and marginalized communities remained within LA vs Hate while the Armenian-American organization specifically engaged in anti-Armenian hate work was removed.

Like most lawyers, Toma went silent to avoid incriminating himself, but an LA County insider claims the real reason was far more sinister.

That deserves a direct answer.

Not another general statement about budget conditions.

If Armenian representation was eliminated while other community representation continued, Los Angeles County should be able to explain exactly how that decision was made.

Anything less invites the conclusion that Armenian participation was considered expendable.

Kathryn Barger's Silence Is Particularly Difficult to Defend

Barger's role deserves separate scrutiny.

She represents a district with an enormous Armenian-American constituency. She publicly celebrated the County's partnership with TAAL and said the collaboration demonstrated Los Angeles County's commitment to protecting Armenian rights.

That creates an obligation greater than issuing a congratulatory quotation when a campaign is launched.

When the Armenian organization involved in that very partnership was later removed and began seeking answers, Barger was in a unique position to demand an explanation.

Her office was contacted repeatedly.

The outreach went unanswered.

For an elected official representing one of the country's most significant Armenian-American constituencies, silence under those circumstances is not a neutral act.

Elected officials routinely speak about representation as though presence alone constitutes progress.

It does not.

Representation has meaning only when public officials use their authority when the community they represent actually needs it.

If Barger was willing to publicly praise the County-TAAL partnership, she should also have been willing to ask why that partnership disappeared.

Glendale Was Given an Opportunity to Act

The City of Glendale faces its own questions.

After the 2023 incident and town hall, TAAL subsequently approached members of the Glendale City Council and the City Manager with proposals for anti-hate and public-education initiatives.

Those proposals were not designed solely for Armenians. They included ideas intended to benefit communities targeted by hate more broadly.

No response came.

That silence looks considerably worse today than it did then.

Because the feared recurrence is no longer hypothetical.

Anti-Armenian hate material appeared in Glendale in 2023.

The city knew.

The police knew.

The County knew.

The Human Relations Commission knew.

A town hall was held.

Officials participated.

Preventive action was requested.

Additional ideas were offered.

Then, in 2026, anti-Armenian hate material appeared again, this time around an elementary school.

The latest incident does not mean government could necessarily have prevented one individual's hateful conduct.

No government can guarantee that.

But government can build public education, community engagement, reporting systems, sustained prevention programs and durable institutional relationships with communities experiencing hate.

The relevant question is whether that sustained infrastructure was built.

Three years later, Armenian-American advocates are still asking where it is.

This Is What Symbolic Inclusion Looks Like

Los Angeles County has built an extensive vocabulary around equity, diversity, inclusion and belonging.

Those words are easy to print.

They are harder to practice.

TAAL's experience presents an uncomfortable test of whether Armenian Americans receive the same institutional seriousness promised to other communities.

The organization was invited into LA vs Hate.

The County collaborated with it.

County officials publicly praised the work.

Its campaigns were promoted through County channels.

Then its partnership ended.

Requests for an explanation went unanswered for an extended period.

Meanwhile, the underlying problem the partnership was supposedly helping address did not disappear.

Anti-Armenian hate returned.

That sequence should trouble anyone who takes the County's claims about representation seriously.

Representation that lasts only while an organization is useful to a public campaign is not representation.

Inclusion that disappears without explanation is not inclusion.

And solidarity that materializes for a press release but cannot produce a returned telephone call is little more than public relations.

Imagine This Happening to Another Community

The comparison Armenian Americans increasingly make is uncomfortable precisely because it is difficult to dismiss.

If hate propaganda repeatedly targeted another major minority community in one of America's cities most closely identified with that population, would the institutional response stop at statements?

Would an organization representing that community disappear from a flagship County anti-hate initiative without a prompt explanation?

Would nearly ten emails, telephone messages and direct outreach to senior officials go unanswered?

Would the elected supervisor representing that population remain on the sidelines?

Would a city government ignore proposals intended to prevent another occurrence?

And if similar hate material appeared again three years later, would officials be permitted to behave as though everyone were confronting the problem for the first time?

Armenian Americans are not asking for special treatment.

They are asking for equal seriousness.

That distinction matters.

Los Angeles County Now Has to Answer for What Happened Between 2023 and 2026

The most important question is no longer what officials will say about the latest flyers.

Their condemnation is predictable and appropriate.

The meaningful question concerns the three years between incidents.

What was built?

What was funded?

What public-education effort was sustained?

What prevention program grew out of the 2023 town hall?

What institutional mechanism was established so that anti-Armenian hate would receive continuing attention rather than episodic concern?

Why did Armenian representation within LA vs Hate end?

Why did Toma not provide an explanation earlier?

Why did Barger's office fail to intervene when an organization serving a major constituency in her district was asking for answers?

And what will be different now?

Los Angeles County cannot credibly claim ignorance.

Its own records document the partnership.

Its own officials attended the town hall.

Its own communications promoted TAAL's anti-hate campaigns.

Its own Human Relations Commission leader publicly acknowledged anti-Armenian discrimination.

Its own Fifth District supervisor publicly praised the County's work with TAAL.

Then the partnership disappeared.

Now the hate has returned.

Armenian Americans have already heard the condemnations.

What they have not received is convincing evidence that the institutions issuing them learned enough from 2023 to prevent history from simply repeating itself.

Three years ago, officials were warned.

Three years later, anti-Armenian hate material appeared again.

The burden should no longer be on Armenian Americans to prove that the problem deserves attention.

The burden is on Los Angeles County, Robin Toma, and Kathryn Barger to demonstrate what they intend to do about it.