Man Indicted in Assaults on Blacks

A reputed member of a skinhead group that terrorized African Americans in the Lancaster area was indicted for alleged civil rights violations Thursday by a federal grand jury.

Eric Lance Dillard, an 18-year-old white man, was accused of taking part in the beating and stabbing of an African American youth who was set upon as he was walking along a Lancaster street on July 8, 1996.

Dillard was also accused of beating another black man who had just left a video rental store in Lancaster on April 28, 1996.

During both attacks, U.S. Atty. Nora Manella said, the assailants shouted racially derogatory remarks and proclaimed “white power.”

Dillard belonged to a white supremacist group that cruised through the streets of Lancaster “looking for African Americans to taunt, harass, intimidate, beat, injure and assault,” the indictment said.

One of his alleged confederates, Danny Williams, 24, was sentenced earlier this month to four years and nine months in prison after pleading guilty to federal civil rights violations stemming from the same attacks.

In the first one, Eric Miller had just left a video rental store at 30th Street West and Avenue L in Lancaster and was about to get into his car when he was allegedly accosted by Dillard and Williams.

Shouting, “this is skinhead land,” Dillard punched Miller with his fists while Williams swung a baseball bat at the black man, the indictment charged.

The pair then drove off in their car looking for more blacks to attack, prosecutors said, apparently without success.

About two months later, the government charged, Dillard, Williams and an unnamed co-conspirator carried out another brutal attack.

Marcus Cotton, then 16, was walking with his cousin, Angela McKinzie, along Division Street in Lancaster when they were intercepted by three white youths with shaved heads who jumped out of a car.

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The indictment said Dillard, Williams and the unnamed cohort beat, kicked and stabbed Cotton several times. When they were finished, they allegedly walked up to McKinzie, spat in her face and used a racial slur. Cotton, stabbed four times in the back, was hospitalized and recovered.

In response to the violence, a hate crime hotline and a human relations task force were established in Lancaster.

At his sentencing earlier this month, a tearful Williams apologized to his victims who attended the hearing.

Dillard, who is being held at the Metropolitan Detention Center in downtown Los Angeles, is scheduled to be arraigned in federal court on Monday.