Suspect in Racial Attacks Escapes

LANCASTER â€”  The FBI is searching for a man who disappeared from a minimum security facility while awaiting trial on charges that he attacked two African Americans with a machete and a baseball bat, federal agents said Thursday.

Danny Edward Williams, 23, managed to slip past guards at a Pasadena drug rehabilitation center and escape Jan. 18, said FBI supervisor Gary Auer.

Williams was sent to the rehab center to undergo treatment for methamphetamine addiction while awaiting trial for allegedly violating the civil rights of two local African Americans.

The trial is scheduled for March.

“We’re going to catch this guy,� said Auer. “We’re pretty sure he is staying close to home in the Antelope Valley, and we’re hoping he gives himself up like the last time.�

In September, Williams turned himself in after he was indicted on federal charges of taking part with two other men in an alleged attack on a 16-year-old.

Williams is also accused of an April 28 beating in Lancaster of an African American man who was struck with a baseball bat.

Linda Thompson Taylor, president of the Antelope Valley chapter of the NAACP, said she doesn’t understand why anyone accused of “such a crime would be put in a minimum-security facility� or why the FBI did not disclose right away that Williams had fled.

Taylor said she had notified one of the alleged victims and is trying to find the other. “You can bet I’m going to call the FBI too,� she said.

Auer said agents believe that Williams is growing his hair to avoid capture. But Williams is still easy to spot, the agent said, because of his tattoos. Behind an ear are the numerals 666, according to Auer. Williams also has a swastika on his left hand, a Ku Klux Klan figure on his left shoulder and a Viking on his left arm.