Beating Suspect Arrested After Earlier Escape

A reputed skinhead, who was wanted by federal authorities after he jumped bail last month while awaiting trial for allegedly beating two African American men last year, was arrested Friday.

Danny Edward Williams, 23, a self-described white supremacist and a member of the “Nazi Lowriders” skinhead gang, was arrested by FBI agents and Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies at a Lancaster house where he was hiding out with friends, according to Gary Auer, FBI supervisor.

Auer said Williams is being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in Los Angeles and no other arrests were made.

Williams, who allegedly used a baseball bat and long-handled knife in racially motivated beatings of two men in Lancaster, escaped Jan. 18 from a minimum-security facility in Pasadena where he was being treated for a methamphetamine addiction.

Law enforcement officials had earlier reported that a machete was used in one of the attacks but FBI agents have said that was not accurate.

Auer said that the FBI was led to Williams after receiving numerous tips.

“The arrest of Williams was a direct result of the responsiveness of the public,” Auer said.

Williams, who has a swastika tattooed on his left hand, a Ku Klux Klan figure on his left shoulder and a Viking on his left arm, tried to escape out the back door when agents and deputies arrived. He retreated back into the house after discovering agents waiting for him and surrendered a short time later, Auer said.

U.S. District Court Judge Terry Hatter had allowed Williams to seek treatment before his trial, which was scheduled for March, over the objections of Assistant U.S. Atty. Mike Gennaco, who argued that Williams was a flight risk.

The 130-bed nonprofit facility where Williams was staying has no guards and no locked gates. Patients there are allowed to leave the facility, said Jim Stillwell, executive director of the Impact Residential Drug Treatment Center.

Gennaco said Williams will probably be ordered to appear before Hatter sometime next week. Gennaco again will ask the judge that Williams be held without bail until his trial.