2 Arrested After Black Worker Attacked in Lot

Two men authorities say are affiliated with a white supremacist group were arrested late Tuesday on suspicion of assaulting an African American Wal-Mart worker who approached a white woman in the store’s parking lot.

Nathaniel Harris, 20, was rounding up shopping carts at the Lancaster Wal-Mart when he thought he recognized a 20-year-old woman as a former high school classmate, said Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Lt. Axel Anderson.

Harris asked the woman if the two had been classmates--angering her boyfriend, Shaun Broderick, 19, and their companion, Christopher Crawford, 25, Anderson said. Broderick walked to his car, pulled out a 20-ounce hammer and confronted Harris, yelling threats, obscenities and racial epithets, Anderson said.

Grasping the hammer with both hands, Broderick swung at Harris and hit him in the shoulder, Anderson said. Harris fought back and was wrestling with Broderick on the ground, authorities say, when Crawford joined in, kicking and hitting Harris.

The attackers fled after a Wal-Mart security guard intervened.

Using a license plate number supplied by witnesses, sheriff’s deputies apprehended the trio about four miles away. The two men were arrested and booked on suspicion of assault with a deadly weapon and civil rights violations. They were each being held Wednesday on $85,000 bail.

Harris suffered a bruised shoulder. He was treated and released from a local hospital.

Anderson said the two suspects are affiliated with the Antelope Valley’s Nazi Lowriders gang and that both had criminal records. They are expected to be arraigned today on felony charges.

The incident rekindled concerns over racist activity in Antelope Valley. Reacting to a rise in racial attacks, residents, police and government officials have worked together during the past several years to confront intolerance in the community.

“This is just the latest in a string of problems out here,” said Darren Parker, head of the Antelope Valley Human Relations Hate Crime Task Force, a citizens group formed three years ago to mobilize against hate crimes.

Just last week the task force held a news conference--attended by Sheriff Lee Baca, Dist. Atty. Gil Garcetti, Supervisor Mike Antonovich and others--to highlight its mission.

Parker believes that skinhead groups were angered by the well publicized conference and escalated their activity, peppering the area with graffiti and racist posters.

“And now this attack,” Parker said. “It’s a backlash, in my opinion.”

Officials involved in monitoring hate crimes say three white supremacist groups--the Palmdale Peckerwoods, the Metal Minds and the Nazi Lowriders--are responsible for most of the violence that has steadily increased in the 1990s.

In its most recent report, the Los Angeles County Human Relations Commission found that hate crimes rose nearly 20% in the Antelope Valley in 1996 alone. There were 20 reported incidents of hate crimes in Lancaster last year, ranging from cross burnings to assaults, according to Sheriff’s Department spokeswoman Theresa Dawson.

Lancaster Vice Mayor Henry Hearns, an African American who has lived in the Antelope Valley for more than 30 years, said racism is nothing new in the area.

“We’ve always had these problems,” Hearns said. “It’s just that now we are focusing more on them, getting better attention and people are coming together to fight.”