Defendant Denies That Racism Sparked Slaying

He said he listened to a racist band because he liked the beat, and admitted he had a White Aryan Resistance cartoon and a handbill quoting Hitler stuffed in his wallet.

But Robert Wofford testified Wednesday that he did not take the white supremacist views seriously, and insisted that racial prejudice played no role in his involvement in a confrontation that left an African American man dead at a Huntington Beach fast-food restaurant.

Wofford, 19, is on trial for murder and committing a hate crime in the shooting death of 44-year-old Vernon Flournoy, who was killed while walking to get dinner on Sept. 15, 1994.

Wofford testified Wednesday that he exchanged blows with the victim that evening, but he said he didn’t know that an acquaintance, Jonathan Russell Kinsey, had a gun until it was fired.

He denied using a racial slur to provoke a fight with the victim, and said he was following behind Kinsey and didn’t know what sparked the confrontation with Flournoy, a stranger who was “minding his own business.”

“Did you say anything at all?” his attorney, Patrick McNeal, asked.

“No,” Wofford responded.

Wofford testified he knew Kinsey was a “skinhead” with racist views who had bragged that day about shooting someone, although they hardly knew each other and had never talked about their views on minorities.

“I didn’t really pay that much attention to all that,” Wofford testified.

Deputy Dist. Atty. Jim Tanizaki took “great exception” to Wofford’s testimony as closing arguments began before the jury, saying the fatal attack was a “joint venture” between the defendant and Kinsey.

Before the trial started last week, Kinsey, 20, of Huntington Beach pleaded guilty to murder and hate crime charges in connection with Flournoy’s death, and felony charges relating to another shooting attack on two Latino men.

The prosecutor pointed to testimony from a witness who saw Wofford and Kinsey together, blocking the victim’s path before blows were exchanged and shots rang out.

“They wanted to provoke Mr. Flournoy and eventually that provocation led to a fight,” Tanizaki told jurors.

Wofford’s past writings, including a high school essay about white power, and drawings of Nazi symbols and slogans show a young man who was an “advocate of hate” and an “advocate of violence,” Tanizaki said.

A witness also testified that Wofford, a former laborer who lived at times with his grandparents in Huntington Beach, used a racial slur to describe the victim after the shooting, the prosecutor said.

The prosecutor further contended that Wofford knew Kinsey was armed and should have known that a gun, mixed with racial hatred and provoking taunts, could lead to “extreme violence and death.”

“It’s either murder or nothing,” Tanizaki told jurors.

Wofford’s attorney, however, contended that no matter how “ugly” Wofford’s racial views might be, there was no evidence that the defendant encouraged the shooting or could have known a trip to McDonald’s to meet some girls would end in Kinsey shooting someone to death.