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Attorney: Tulsa suspect not motivated by race

Attorney Clark Brewster
File photo
Attorney Clark Brewster

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) — A defense attorney says a man facing murder and hate crime charges in a Tulsa shooting spree that killed three people and terrorized the city's black community wasn't motivated by race.

Attorney Clark Brewster said Friday that he's agreed to represent 19-year-old Jake England, who is charged along with his roommate in the Easter weekend shootings. Police say England and 33-year-old Alvin Watts have confessed, England to shooting three people and Watts to shooting two.

All the victims were black, and police say one motive might have been England's desire to avenge his father's fatal shooting by a black man two years ago.

Brewster says it's a "misplaced premise" that England was "motivated by any racial hate."

Both men are being held without bail and are to be arraigned on Monday.