BURBANK : K mart Suspects In-Store Vandalism

Nearly 200 notebooks stamped with a white supremacist statement and discovered this weekend on the shelves of two Valley K marts may have been vandalized in the stores, a spokeswoman for the national chain said Monday.

“We’re conducting an internal investigation and we’re going to turn over information to the local police,” said Mary Lorencz, a spokeswoman for the Michigan-based retailer. “The early indication is that (the notebooks) were done in the stores.”

Lorencz would not elaborate on what led store managers to believe that the vandalism may have occurred in the stores, saying only: “We’ll turn everything over to the police.”

Burbank police are investigating as a hate crime the incident in which 180 notebooks stamped with the words “Earth’s most endangered species: The white race. Help preserve it” were discovered Saturday at K marts on San Fernando Road in Burbank and Foothill Boulevard in Sunland.

The message in black ink listed a telephone number for a group identified as the Aryan Freedom Fighters, which has a Chatsworth post office box.

Police suspect a hate crime because investigators who called a phone number printed on the notebooks were greeted with a message that was “race-biased or promoted hatred of another race,” said Lt. Van Miller of the Burbank police.

Store managers learned of the vandalized Mead, Union Comp and Carolina Pad notebooks after a customer returned one to the Burbank store.