3rd Suspect Arrested in Race-Related Shooting : Lancaster: White supremacist gang members are held after Feb. 21 incident that injured four African Americans. NAACP says hate crimes are on the rise.

Authorities on Monday arrested the last of three white supremacist gang members who allegedly fired shots at a car filled with four African Americans in an incident some community leaders are calling the most serious of a rising number of hate crimes in the Antelope Valley.

Two teen-age passengers were grazed by bullets during the Feb. 21 shooting, authorities said, and all of the vehicle’s occupants--including a year-old girl--were cut by broken glass. The shooting, which took place near Antelope Valley High School in Lancaster, is being investigated by the hate crime division of the district attorney’s office.

The president of the local branch of the National Assn. for the Advancement of Colored People said the incident is not an isolated one.

“This has been ongoing, yet it has not been reported,” said Lynda Thompson Taylor on Monday. “When this happened with the skinheads in Lancaster, that put the icing on the cake.”

Taylor said her office has received complaints about five incidents, including the drive-by shooting, since mid-January. She mentioned an increase in hate graffiti, including swastikas, and two incidents in which groups of African Americans were beaten up by whites yelling racial slurs.

“We seriously feel that something is going haywire here in the Antelope Valley,” Taylor said. “Our big concern was that the hate crimes weren’t reported as hate crimes. We feel that it is going to escalate.”

Officials from the Antelope Valley sheriff’s station said that many of the incidents are still under investigation and cannot yet be characterized as hate crimes.

The shooting prompted the local branch of the NAACP to hold a panel discussion Saturday where law enforcement officials, including representatives of the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Department, the district attorney’s office, the FBI and Department of Justice, informed about 200 residents of the steps they should take in reporting racial incidents.

The mayors of Lancaster and Palmdale also attended the meeting.

Sheriff’s Deputy Charles Ingram, who is the lead investigator in the Feb. 21 incident, said Monday that the three men later arrested for the shooting were on their way to a rumble with a rival white supremacist gang. When the other gang did not show up, the three men turned their attention to a blue Honda Civic that was parked outside the high school, Ingram said.

At 2:45 p.m., as a crowd of students was leaving the school, the three men--who authorities described as skinheads and members of the white supremacist Peckerwood gang--allegedly drove by in a yellow Chevrolet Malibu and fired six shots.

“I was scratched by a bullet and cut by the glass,” said Clarence Davis, 17, of Lancaster, who was a passenger in the Honda. “We were coming back from the park after playing basketball. We rode around and parked. Once we parked, some skinheads came by and started shooting.”

Stanton Roberts, 19, of Lancaster, was also grazed by bullets on his head and neck. Eric Dooley, 20, also of Lancaster, and his year-old daughter were struck by broken glass from the back window.

Roberts, who was driving, headed to Antelope Valley Hospital Medical Center, where all four were treated.

“The thing about this is that it was down near the high school, in the middle of the day, right about the time when the kids get out of school,” Ingram said.

One of the students leaving school took down the license plate number, and two hours later authorities arrested Robert Garland Jr., 21, of Lancaster, Ingram said. Three days after that, tips led authorities to Robert Andrew Jones, 20, of Gardena, Ingram said.

After nearly a two-week search, authorities arrested the last suspect, Chris Parker, 18, a transient from Lancaster, who was found leaving a 24-hour market in Rosamond early Monday.

The three are charged with four counts of attempted murder, commission of a hate crime and child endangerment. They are being held in lieu of a combined bail of $2 million and will receive a preliminary hearing Thursday, Deputy Dist. Atty. Carla Arranaga said.

Lancaster Mayor Frank Roberts said Monday he was surprised by the shooting, which he said is an isolated incident and one that is going to be addressed by the city’s 8-month-old diversity council.

“The general feeling is that the nature of the community is changing somewhat,” he said. “There is a degree of concern. We’d like to think this is a onetime incident, but if we discover a nest of skinheads in our midst, we will work in any way to stifle that activity.”

Times staff writer Nicholas Riccardi contributed to this story.