ADL LA’s Helene & Joseph Sherwood Prize for Combating Hate luncheon and awards ceremony was held on March 10 at the Skirball Cultural Center in Los Angeles. The prizes are awarded annually to law enforcement personnel in Southern California who go above and beyond the call of duty to fight hate. As ADL Regional Board Chair Scott Harris said during his introduction, “every one of the award recipients is a shining example of leadership and service for the whole law enforcement community.”
ADL LA Deputy Regional Director Ariella Loewenstein and ADL Center of Extremism Senior Investigative Researcher Joanna Mendelson paid tribute to Joe Sherwood, who died last month shortly before his 103rd birthday. Joe and Helene Sherwood founded the Sherwood Prize in 1996 to provide a forum for recognizing law enforcement at its best.
2020 Sherwood Prize Group Honoree First Responders to Poway Chabad Shooting with Howard and Stephanie Sherwood, and ADL San Diego Regional Director Tammy Gillies.
This year, the individual honoree was Detective Orlando Martinez, LAPD’s Hate Crimes Coordinator, for working vigorously to bring about change, awareness, and justice to those victimized by discrimination and hatred. In his remarks, he thanked LAPD leaders, including Chief Michel Moore, for helping to “create a culture from the top down” that prioritizes investigation of crimes motivated by bias.
In the first of four group honorees, the Orange County Sheriff’s Department received an award for their investigation of the murder of Blaze Bernstein, a 20 year old college student visiting home for the holidays in 2018. They worked diligently and methodically to bring the perpetrator, an alleged member of a violent neo-Nazi group known as the Atomwaffen Division, to justice. Blaze Bernstein’s grandparents were in attendance, with his grandfather providing remarks in which he thanked the Sheriff’s Department investigators for not only “investigating the murder as hate crime, but solving the crime.”
ADL LA Board Chair Scott Harris, ADL Western States Counsel Kimberley Plotnik, Assistant United States Attorney-CDCA Mack Jenkins, United States Attorney-CDCA Nicola Hanna, and Amanda Susskind.
FBI’s Los Angeles Field Office and the U.S. District Attorney’s Office – Central District of California received an award for prosecuting all eight defendants, Hispanic gang members, who firebombed several Ramona Gardens apartments in May 2018 simply because the residents were African American. The final defendant just recently pleaded guilty, and the mastermind of the hate crimes could receive up to 20 years in prison.
LAPD’s Criminal Investigation Section was awarded a prize for ensuring that the perpetrator of an attempted car ramming of Jewish victims in November 2018, allegedly motivated in part by Islamist extremism, would be removed from the community and prevented from committing future acts of hate. Accepting the award for the group was Captain Robert Long, who referred to remarks made by Blaze Bernstein’s grandfather, and reiterated that law enforcement’s goal was ultimately “to help keep people safe and, when we can’t keep people safe, to bring those who took away our loved ones to justice.”
Howard Sherwood thanks law enforcement and talks about the legacy of his father, the late Joe Sherwood.
The final award went to the first responders to the Poway Chabad Shooting Attack, honoring the bravery and quick response of law enforcement personnel and civilians at the time of the attack. It was also to honor those law enforcement behind the scenes, continuing to investigate ongoing threats and safeguard the community. LAPD Assistance Chief Beatrice Girmala introduced the award recipients, remarking that the group asserted that they were “not going to let a despicable act prevent us from love and worship.” Poway Mayor Steve Vaus remembering the tragic day, remarked, “We walked through the valley of death and we came out stronger because we worked together.”
David Sherwood, Joe Sherwood’s grandson, and Scott Harris gave closing remarks.
