Police Say Suspect Organized Gangs in Two States

A 21-year-old fugitive suspected in the January slaying of a former Tustin High School student is a self-styled gang leader who has organized branches of his “211 gang” in two states and might have become a white supremacist while in a Missouri prison, police said Saturday.

Gunner J. Lindberg was being held at the Orange County Jail without bail Saturday night on suspicion of killing Thien Minh Ly, who was stabbed to death Jan. 29 on a high school tennis court. Lindberg is also wanted in Missouri for the alleged shotgun shooting of a rival there.

Tustin police say Lindberg rolled into town in the past year and was trying to start a gang chapter, much as he had done during a recent stay in Oceanside. That suspicion fits a pattern familiar to police in Missouri, where Lindberg was involved in two shootings.

Lindberg has shuttled back and forth from family homes in Southern California and rural Missouri the past decade and also spent time in Las Vegas and Arizona. In each locale, the dark-haired, tattooed young man ran afoul of the law.

Upon his arrival in Lawrence, Mo., a rural community in the state’s southwest corner, Lindberg immediately landed in trouble. Lawrence County Sheriff David Tatum said he has seen few tougher criminals during his 16 years in the post.

“I don’t know that you could call him a psychotic killer, but he does seem to strike without remorse or feeling,” Tatum said. “He started out young. He came here in his teens and tried to start up this gang. That was kind of new to us. We don’t put up with that here.”

Lindberg was being sought for a first-degree assault charge--the state’s equivalent of an attempted murder charge--for allegedly hiding in the bed of a pickup truck with a sawed-off shotgun and ambushing a rival last year. The victim was shot in the shoulder and Lindberg eluded a local manhunt that began in July.

Before that, Lindberg served most of a five-year prison sentence for another first-degree assault after shooting an 11-year-old boy three times with a pellet gun in 1992. One of the pellets struck an artery and lodged in the heart of the boy, Nicholas Gari.

The boy’s father, Robert Gari, is a Mt. Vernon, Mo., police officer, and Saturday he expressed relief that his son’s onetime attacker was again in custody.

“He’s a gang leader, he’s no follower,” Robert Gari said. “He’s been going from small town to small town and starting up these gangs until he gets into too much trouble. Then he moves on to the next one.”

A tattoo marks Lindberg with the name of his purported gang--”211,” a reference to Feb. 11, the date Lindberg was either sentenced or arrived at prison, Robert Gari said. The robbery murder of Ly is being investigated as a crime to help fund that gang, Tustin Sgt. Brent Zicarelli said. Police are also reviewing the case to see if it qualifies as a hate crime.

The prison stint in Missouri might have introduced Lindberg to the teachings of white supremacists, Tatum said. Tustin police said they discovered posters and other items associated with that movement in Lindbergh’s apartment, including Nazi Germany memorabilia and a human skull branded with a swastika.

Residents at a two-story apartment building in the 15500 block of Pasadena Avenue couldn’t believe Saturday that their neighbors, Lindberg and his 17-year-old roommate, had been arrested in connection with the Ly killing. They also seemed skeptical that he could be associated with white supremacists.

Building manager Roger Alejos called Lindberg “respectful, very polite,” and said he “didn’t give off the air of being white supremacist or some kind of racist.” Other residents of the mostly Spanish-speaking complex described Lindberg as private but friendly.

Lindberg arrived at the apartment building a few months ago, knocking on the door of his great-uncle, Robert Mix, and presenting himself as a distant relative seeking refuge. Mix said Saturday that he unknowingly opened his home to a fugitive when he invited Lindberg and his 17-year-old companion to stay.

“He comes and goes and I don’t ask him a lot of questions,” said Mix, who was briefly cuffed and questioned by police during the Saturday raid. He told police his lodger was Jerry Lindberg--an alias Missouri police said Lindberg has used in the past and also the name of his brother, who committed suicide.

Late Saturday, Mix said he had more questions than answers. Preparing to take a pair of shoes to the jail for his great-nephew, Mix said he was having a difficult time understanding the day’s events.

“He’s just staying here, so I don’t know what he does,” Mix said. “I don’t go in his room, but I don’t think he’s a white supremacist. If he were, that’d be a one-way ticket out of here.”