An Oklahoma man said he doesn't hate African-Americans and counts
some of them among his best friends. Murder and hate crime charges were
filed on Friday accusing him and another man of killing three strangers
because they were black.
Clark Brewster, lawyer
for 19-year-old Jake England, told reporters Friday he would not comment
specifically about the April 6 shootings that left three dead and two
others wounded in Tulsa, Oklahoma.
He did show a video of an
interview his team conducted and recorded with England from jail, in
which the suspect described the trauma of watching first his father and
then, nearly two years later, his girlfriend being shot dead a few feet
away from him.
England also talked of
growing up and living in North Tulsa, which has a large African-American
community, and saying he had friends of all races.
"I always got along with everybody," he said in the tape, recorded Friday morning. "It didn't matter what color he was."
That view is starkly
different from the portrayal of England offered by prosecutors, as well
as in the probable cause affidavit that led to the arrest of him and
33-year-old Alvin Watts.
In addition to commenting
on his girlfriend's suicide in January, England lamented his father's
death exactly two years earlier "at the hands of a f--king n----r" in an
April 5 message on his Facebook page.
England said in the
jailhouse interview that he used those words "just to express how I was
upset at the guy who shot my Dad" and they do not mean he was a racist.
Authorities say he and
Watts went into a largely African-American section of Tulsa shortly
after midnight and gunned down apparent strangers at four locations. Two
men and one woman died after being shot in the chest -- with one of
them found "lying face down" outside a funeral home -- while two others
were shot and survived.
All the shooting victims
are black. Police have identified Watts and England as white, though
the probable cause affidavit released Friday noted England was a
co-owner of a truck that had Cherokee Nation license plates.
Three Crime Stoppers
tips helped lead authorities to the men, according to the affidavit. In
the first, made last Saturday, a caller described England as "a racist
(who) hates black males" and said he had "bragged about other
shootings."
Another person phoned to
say that England had gone off to burn his truck, which was similar to
the vehicle seen by several people -- including one of the survivors --
in and around the area where the shootings took place. Sheriff deputies
soon after found a 1989 Chevy truck with the Cherokee Nation tag on fire
in North Tulsa.
The third caller to
contact Crime Stoppers on April 7 said England had "made several
comments about killing black people" and wanted "justice" for his
father's killing. This person added that England "uses drugs and will
not go down without a fight."
Neither England nor
Watts offered resistance when they were taken into custody early Sunday,
Tulsa Police Capt. Jonathan Brooks said.
England confessed to
shooting three people, while fellow suspect Watts admitted to police
that he shot the other two, both of which were fatal, according to
police documents.
Tulsa County District
Attorney Tim Harris on Friday filed charges against both men on three
counts of first-degree murder tied to the deaths of 54-year-old Bobby
Clark, 49-year-old Dannaer Fields and 31-year-old William Terrell Allen.
They also face two
counts of shooting with intent to kill related to the two people who
were wounded, according to the press release from the district
attorney's office.
In addition, the men
face five counts of malicious harassment. The district attorney notes
that, according to Oklahoma law, the charge infers that a person has
acted "maliciously and with the specific intent to intimidate or harass
another person because of that person's race, color, religion, ancestry,
national origin or disability."
The charge is equivalent
to a hate crime under Oklahoma law, according to Partners Against Hate,
a joint project of the Anti-Defamation League, the Leadership
Conference Education Fund and the Center for Preventing Hate nonprofit
groups.
The Rev. Jesse Jackson,
speaking Friday outside the First Baptist Church in North Tulsa,
challenged why this "hate crime" charge is considered a misdemeanor, and
not a felony, in Oklahoma. The maximum penalty for a conviction is a
year in prison and a $1,000 fine.
Still, the civil rights
leader lauded authorities for filing charges in the case that
effectively asserted the victims were targeted due to their race. The
Rev. Al Sharpton voiced a similar sentiment, canceling a planned trip to
Tulsa and saying in a statement he was "glad that (prosecutors) filed
first-degree murder and hate crime charges."
"We're glad that they've made that decision in the right direction today," Jackson said.
Brewster said he decided
to represent England after getting a letter Monday from the suspect's
mother, who has been incarcerated for the past 11 years. The lawyer
described his client as a hard-working young man who had served as a
father figure to his teenage sister and is himself the father of a baby
son born to his late girlfriend.
He also said England harbors no ill will toward African-Americans.
"Many (of his friends)
are black. He has family members that are black. And there's no hatred
of blacks in him at all," said Brewster.
The U.S. Justice
Department is investigating the Tulsa shootings to determine if federal
civil rights were violated, said spokeswoman Xochitl Hinojosa. She
called it an "open investigation," but not a hate crimes investigation
per se.
Watts and England will
appear in court Monday, when a judge will set a date for a preliminary
hearing. Prosecutors filed a motion Friday asking that both defendants
be held without bond and not be released if they come up with the $9.16
million bond set Monday, when authorities outlined murder but not the
malicious harassment charges.
"Both defendants are a
danger to public safety in this community, and they have strong
incentive to flee the jurisdiction if they were able to make bond," the
prosecution argued.
The maximum sentence for
each charge of shooting with intent to kill is life in prison. England
and Watts could face anywhere from life with the possibility of parole
or a death sentence for the murder charges. First District Attorney Doug
Drummond said in a press release that the prosecution likely will
decide whether to seek the death penalty after the preliminary hearing
is complete.
Calling the shootings "tragic and senseless," Drummond characterized the filing of charges as a "first step to obtain justice."
Jackson similarly
cautioned against celebrating too early that the suspects were detained
and charged, noting the legal process ahead could be long and
complicated.
"This is a first down, not a touchdown," he said. "This is a charge, not a conviction."
Source: CNN News