Brothers Held in Confrontation With Biracial Couple

Two La Crescenta brothers were arrested Monday evening after allegedly assaulting a biracial couple, shouting racial epithets and kicking in the windshield of the couple’s car, police said.

Philip Martin Alexander, 21, and Steven Eugene Alexander, 19, were scheduled to be arraigned in Superior Court in Glendale today, on one count each of interference of civil rights, a felony. Each man faces a maximum sentence of one year in state prison and a $10,000 fine.

Police said the alleged assault Monday followed a confrontation two weeks earlier in La Crescenta involving a white woman and her two biracial children. At that time, the two brothers allegedly were among a group that screamed racial epithets at the children, but largely ignored the woman, “because she is white,” said Chahe Keuroghelian, a Glendale Police Department spokesman.

On Monday, as the woman and her boyfriend, who is black, were taking an evening drive, she noticed the same men talking at a curbside along Boston Street in La Crescenta.

“She told her boyfriend these were the same guys who assaulted their children, and he ended up stopping the car and asking these guys why they did it,” Keuroghelian said.

“Pretty soon, he realized he was outnumbered by the four or five guys there, and he got back in his car,” Keuroghelian said. “But as he was about to leave, Philip reached in and grabbed his coat, ripping it. Steven, meanwhile, was on the hood of the car, jumping up and down and kicking in the windshield. He was yelling, ‘White power,’ the whole time, and both were screaming racial slurs.”

After a few minutes, the couple managed to drive away and call police, but not before Steven Alexander fell from the car’s hood and broke his arm, according to police. Steven called 911 to report a hit-and-run accident. He was treated at an area hospital and arrested, Keuroghelian said.

Each of the brothers was in jail Tuesday on $50,000 bond.