Santa Clarita / Antelope Valley : Reputed Supremacists to Be Tried in Alleged Hate Crime

Three men authorities describe as members of a white supremacist group were ordered Friday to stand trial on attempted-murder, hate-crime and child-endangerment charges after a weeklong preliminary hearing during which there was testimony that they conspired to shoot African Americans.

Authorities charge that Chris Parker, 18; Robert Garland Jr., 21; and Robert Andrew Jones, 20, piled into Garland’s car on Feb. 21, intending to kill the African-American occupants of a car parked in front of Antelope Valley High School.

According to testimony at the hearing by Sheriff’s Deputy Charles Ingram, who interviewed a passenger in Garland’s car, Garland said before the incident: “We’re going to go kill some niggers.”

The defendants rode around Antelope Valley High School for 20 minutes, Ingram said the passenger told him, before Garland passed a 9-millimeter handgun to Parker.

“Is it cool if I shoot out of your car?” Parker asked before leaning out the passenger window and firing at least six bullets in the direction of the parked car, according to Ingram’s interview report.

Also, a witness standing on the street at the time of the shooting testified during the hearing that she saw Parker, nicknamed “Evil,” shoot at the car.

Inside the parked car were three African-American men and an 11-month-old baby. The victims were grazed by bullets and cut by glass as the back window shattered, but no one was seriously injured.

“The victims’ crime was simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Carla Arranaga said.

The defendants, whom authorities describe as skinheads, are allegedly members of a white supremacist gang called the Palmdale Peckerwoods. During the hearing, an investigator testified that Jones and Parker both have swastikas tattooed on their backs and that Parker has “Dreams of White Supremacy” tattooed across his upper chest.

The men face a maximum sentence of life in prison if they are convicted on all counts, Arranaga said. They are being held in lieu of a combined bail of more than $2 million.

Their arraignment is scheduled for May 12 in Los Angeles Superior Court.