Aryan Brotherhood may target teen suspects, police say
Two Spokane teenagers accused of killing a World War II veteran during a parking lot robbery may have been targeted by the Aryan Brotherhood, a California-based white supremacist prison gang.
Court documents indicate Spokane police learned the supremacist group placed a $10,000 bounty on the teens, both of whom are black. The details are part of a court filing explaining why a judge moved Kenan Adams-Kinard, 16, to protective adult custody rather than returning him to juvenile detention before he and Demetruis Glenn, also 16, were formally charged in Spokane County Superior Court.
District Court Judge Debra Hayes ordered Adams-Kinard held in Spokane County Jail on $3 million bond Aug. 27, nearly a week after police say he and Glenn beat 88-year-old Delbert Belton to death in his car outside the Eagles Ice Arena in north Spokane.
Hayes made the order a day after Glenn appeared via teleconference in a packed courtroom. Glenn’s supporters spilled into the open courtyard between the Spokane Public Safety Building and juvenile detention and yelled at him as police led him from his court appearance.
Spokane police Sgt. Tom Hill, who is in charge of security for the transport of prisoners, told Hayes before the hearing his agency had received word the Aryan Brotherhood had placed a $10,000 bounty on the two suspects.
During the hearing, Adams-Kinard’s defense attorney objected to the order, claiming state law prevented Hayes from housing a juvenile inmate with adults unless certain conditions were met. In subsequent filings, Hayes said she made the decision to avoid “tragic results” that may have occurred if the teen was led through the open courtyard.
Jail records list both boys as Spokane County Jail inmates, but Glenn’s attorney said they’re both in the Juvenile Detention Center.
In a letter police have attributed to Adams-Kinard, the teen says he began pummeling Belton after a crack cocaine deal went wrong.
The boys will be on trial for murder in March, though Glenn’s lawyer, Christian Phelps, has indicated he may seek to split the cases.