Defendant Denies Racial Confrontation

A Glendale man charged with violating federal hate crime laws testified Thursday that he never used racial slurs or flashed white power hand signs in confrontations with an interracial family in his predominantly white neighborhood.

Under questioning by his defense lawyer, Steven Alexander, 20, denied harboring hatred toward African Americans, Latinos, Armenians or Jews, as government witnesses have testified in the Los Angeles federal court trial.

The slightly built defendant admitted having used a “heil Hitler salute” and uttering racial slurs about blacks, but only “a few times” among friends and never in public.

Alexander, a school dropout recently convicted of burglary, is being tried with his brother, Philip, 22, on charges of violating the civil rights of Susan Shumate, who is white, and her two sons and boyfriend, who are black.

Prosecutors contend that the Alexanders stopped Shumate and her sons, Andre, 21, and Demoad, 18, as they were walking home from Crescenta Valley Park in May 1998. The Alexanders allegedly shouted racial slurs and white power slogans and told the family they did not belong in the neighborhood.

The defense contends that the incident was not racially motivated, and that Demoad Shumate started the trouble by throwing his hands into the air at the brothers as they drove by, an act the Alexanders took as a challenge.

Another confrontation occurred in June, when Shumate and her boyfriend, Mark Slider, were driving near their home and saw Philip Alexander. According to both sides, Slider got out, exchanged words with Alexander and then returned to his car.

What happened next is a matter of dispute. Prosecutors contend that Steven Alexander arrived on foot, blocked Slider from driving away, then jumped on the hood of his car and smashed the windshield. As Slider put the car in gear, Alexander tumbled off the car, breaking his arm. At the same time, they said, Philip Alexander reached through the open driver’s window and ripped Slider’s jacket.

Steven Alexander called police afterward and claimed that he was the victim of a hit-and-run driver. Shumate and Slider called police too, and when authorities sorted out the conflicting claims they arrested the Alexanders.

On the witness stand Thursday, Steven Alexander acknowledged lying to three police investigators about the incident and the events preceding it.

But in response to questions from his court-appointed lawyer, Edward Robinson, he emphatically denied using any racial slurs during either confrontation or trying to drive Shumate and her family out of the neighborhood.

A jailhouse informant who shared a dormitory with him at the Pitchess Detention Center testified earlier Thursday that Steven Alexander talked incessantly about his hatred of minorities, including blacks, Asians, Armenians, Jews and especially people of mixed race.

Jeffrey Rothschild, a three-time convicted felon, said the defendant also boasted of plans to kidnap Susan Shumate or her boyfriend or one of her sons and hold them captive in a grate-cover pit until the family agreed to move out of town.

Rothschild further said that Steven Alexander admitted overturning gravestones at a Jewish cemetery, receiving correspondence from Aryan groups in Idaho and possessing a copy of Adolf Hitler’s “Mein Kampf” sent to him by former Ku Klux Klan leader David Duke.

Rothschild, 51, admitted that he came forward with his testimony in hopes of “getting a better deal” when he is sentenced next week in New York in a credit card scam. He testified that the prosecution had made no promises to him in exchange for his testimony.

Also testifying for the prosecution was a Los Angeles County deputy district attorney, Andrea Austin, who handled Steven Alexander’s burglary arraignment in Glendale Municipal Court.

She said that as he was being escorted in handcuffs out of the courtroom, she observed him giving a hand sign that stands for white power to his brother, Philip, who was in the spectator gallery.

In his testimony Thursday, Steven Alexander denied Rothschild’s and Austin’s testimony.

The defense also called two character witnesses, Artemis Azarian, an Armenian, and Joseph Stewart, a Native American, both of whom said they were convinced that Steven Alexander is not a racist. Both said they would not alter their views even if they learned that the defendant had used racial slurs or flashed white power signs.