Four reputed supremacists charged with SoCal hate-crime stabbing

Associated Press/December 13, 2006

Claremont, California - Four reputed white supremacists were charged with stabbing a black man at a shopping center where they had stopped while heading to a weekend rally, authorities said.

Los Angeles County prosecutors charged each man Tuesday with attempted murder and assault with a deadly weapon. The charges include hate crime allegations that add several years to a sentence if the men are convicted.

Their arraignment in Pomona Superior Court was postponed to Dec. 15.

A group of up to a dozen white men exchanged words with two black men who had left a liquor store, and then attacked them Friday night near an intersection, police said.

One man, Charles Washington, was stabbed several times, Claremont police Lt. Paul Davenport said.

He was treated at a hospital and released, the lieutenant said.

The white men apparently were making a "pit stop" in Claremont, a college town about 30 miles east of downtown Los Angeles, while en route to a white supremacist rally at the West Los Angeles Federal Building, Davenport said.

Witnesses identified several suspects and a vehicle. The suspects were arrested at the rally the next day, Davenport said.

They were identified as Chad Timothy Milson, 20, of Yucca Valley; Anthony Scott Allen, 23, of Big Bear City; Ryan Christopher White, 28, of Joshua Tree; and Joseph Dale McCool, 20, of Yucca Valley.

All were being held on at least $550,00 bail each on Wednesday.

Allen's attorney, Robert Hartmann, said Wednesday that he had not had a chance to review the case and could not comment on it but denied his client was a racist.

"I'm confident that the evidence will establish that he's not a white supremacist," Hartmann said.

Milson had not obtained a lawyer on Wednesday. Calls to attorneys for the other men were not immediately returned.