Prosecutor: Driver tried to kill Trump protesters

LOS ANGELES >> The organizer of a Southern California rally against racism was charged with attempted murder Tuesday for driving her car into a crowd of counterprotesters.

Orange County prosecutors said Tatiana Turner deliberately drove into a crowd of President Donald Trump’s supporters with the intent to kill a woman, whose head she drove over, and seriously injured another man who broke a leg.

A defense lawyer said Turner tried unsuccessfully to get help from deputies after her group protesting police brutality Saturday in Yorba Linda was overwhelmed by hostile counterprotesters.

Turner feared for her life when she got into her car surrounded by Trump supporters and was trying to get away from the crowd and didn’t intend to hit anyone, attorney Ludlow

Creary II said.

Turner, 40, made her first appearance in court remotely from the jail and was ordered held on $1 million bail.

Turner, who has a felony record for drug sales and domestic violence, is also charged with six counts of assault with a deadly weapon, including one count for causing great bodily injury, mayhem, and two counts of the use of pepper spray by a felon.

The confrontation occurred on a sunny afternoon when Turner and the Urban Organizers Coalition had planned a march against police brutality and systemic racism outside the Yorba Linda Library, about 30 miles (48 kilometers) southeast of Los Angeles.

A group of counter-protesters, many of them holding American f lags and wearing Trump garb, confronted Turner’s smaller group. The conflict became heated and led to fights, authorities said.