Two white Californians have been arrested in connection with the killing of a Black Navy veteran at a local gas station in the central California city of Tracy. The San Joaquin County District Attorney has filed murder and hate crime charges on both parties and has apprehended a third for assisting the couple as they tried to get away.

According to a statement by Tori Verber Salazar, the first woman to become district attorney in San Joaquin County, Christina Lyn Garner, 42, and Jeremy Wayne Jones, 49, have been arraigned on murder charges for the death of Justin Peoples, 30, in Tracy, California.

Christina Lyn Garner and Jeremy Wayne Jones. (Images via the San Joaquin County District Attorney’s Office.)

These counts are accompanied by hate crimes charges, as it is believed that the couple took Peoples’ life because of his race.  

Peoples was a Black man, and Garner and Jones are both white. A confrontation between the couple and the man at the gas station led to the slaying, Tracy police are reporting.

Jones has been charged with one count of first-degree premeditated murder, weapons enhancement for the use of a knife as well as the special circumstance for the hate crime. 

Garner has been charged with one count of murder, weapons enhancement for the use of a firearm during the commission of a felony with special circumstances for the hate crime, and one count of felony possession of a firearm.

The fatal assault happened on Tuesday, March 15, the DA’s office reports.

Justin Peoples (Family photo)

Tracy Police officers responded to an alert that a male had been shot at the Chevron gas station on North Tracy Boulevard.

When the police arrived, Peoples was lying on the ground, injured from a single gunshot and multiple stab wounds. Channel 3000 stated that Peoples was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital almost two hours after the shooting.

The department’s Special Investigations Unit and Special Enforcement Team was pulled on the case and within days arrested Garner and Jones.

The Tracy Police Department SWAT team located and arrested the two suspects in a Stockton home Wednesday, March 16, without incident.

The Office of the District Attorney charged the couple for the former sailor’s death and for using weapons (a gun and a knife) in the killing and identified their associate Christopher Dimenco, 58, as an accessory to their crimes.

Salazar said, “There is no place for hate in our community. No one should be victimized because of their race, ethnicity, sexual orientation, or religion.”

“These types of crimes are reprehensible,” she continued. “And my administration will prosecute to the fullest extent of the law to hold those who perpetuate hate accountable.” 

She also believes, according to People magazine, her office has evidence that links Jones to white supremacist groups. 

While Salazar did not detail why she believes there is a connection between the suspects and the hate groups.

She did say, “I can say I wouldn’t have changed the crime unless I had evidence to prove beyond reasonable doubt that this was a hate-based crime. Based on the past history of the involved parties, we believe we can make this special circumstance of a hate crime and take it all the way to trial.”

Salazar said the “suspects’ history included support of Nazi, white pride, skinhead, Aryan brotherhood.”

The D.A. released images that show some of the man’s tattoos. One of his body-inks features the words “white pride” and another is the image of a swastika.

Tracy Police Chief Sekou Millington said, “There is no room for hate in Tracy or anywhere. When community members are victims of crimes related to hare, we will use our resources to bring those responsible to justice.” 

Millington also shared that from what his department had gathered, Peoples’ death “was unprovoked” and “a senseless act of violence.” 

The soldier’s father, Maurice Peoples, said that his son had just texted him on the day of his murder to set a lunch date for the two of them the next day. He then commented on what “a remarkable young man” his son was as he held pictures of his son up to the media during a news conference about the case. 

“It’s going to always hurt. I wouldn’t wish this on my worst enemy,” the bereaved father stated. “It’s going to be a long hard trial and tribulation in my heart.”

Others in his family spoke about him being a good father of two children as they beckoned for the community to come together.

“Today it’s his child, tomorrow it might be mine,” Bernice Bass, one of his family members, said. “And tomorrow it just might be yours. I don’t care what color you are. You stand for this baby that didn’t deserve to die.”

Bobby Bivens, president of Stockton’s chapter of the NAACP said, according to ABC 10 News, during Friday’s news conference, “We never think that this kind of hate is in our community but as we are all here today, we see that hate is here.”

“A young man who was nice looking educated, been in the military, graduated from our local JC is out here, going to the store, simply to shop and gets murdered,” he says.

Salazar has a message for those who want to come into this area and perpetrate hate crimes against her constituency.

“If you think you can come to my county and do this of harm, with this kind of hate, I guarantee you we have the finest police and sheriff in this county, we will find you,” Salazar said. “These fools, these evil fools, are not going to define who we are. We are proud of who we are. We are disgusted by who they are.”

The three defendants will go before Judge Ronald Northup on April 4, 2022, for further arraignment, but until then the DA has asked for them to remain in custody.