5 More Held in Racial Shoot-Out That Hurt 4 : Tarzana: Black gang members fired back after members of a white supremacist group opened fire at an ethnically mixed party, police say.

Five more people were arrested this weekend in connection with what police characterized as a racially motivated shoot-out that injured four people at a Tarzana party Friday night.

Meanwhile, friends and neighbors of Jeffrey Johnson, 20, the jailed Canoga Park man accused of sparking the incident, said Sunday that he is not a racist and would not have been involved in what was described as a gunfight between rival black and white gangs.

Police on Sunday announced the arrests of Daniel Vejarano, 19, of Panorama City, Larry Blas, 23, of Canoga Park and Chris Wilson of Sherman Oaks. All were arrested on suspicion of attempted murder. Police allege that the three men are members, along with Johnson, of a white supremacist group called the Reseda Hoodz.

Bruce Williams, 21, and Arthur Collins, 24, both of Reseda, also were arrested on the same charge in connection with the shoot-out, police said. Police said Williams and Collins are members of a black gang that also was at the party and allegedly returned fire.

According to police, Johnson and a dozen other gang members went to a party in the 4700 block of Hermano Drive attended by a racially mixed crowd of about 200. Before the party started, police said, Johnson and the others hid a shotgun in the bushes. As the party progressed, police said, white gang members drank alcohol and directed racial slurs at other party-goers.

After arguing with others at the party, Johnson picked up the shot-gun and fired one to three shots in the air, reportedly shouting “white power,” police said. As the crowd scattered into the street, Johnson leveled the shotgun at a party-goer and fired again but missed, police said.

Police said Johnson and another member of the white gang ran from the back yard and down the street toward a car in which they planned to flee. As they did, Johnson turned and fired another shot into the crowd, police said. At the same time, a member of a black gang allegedly returned fire with a shotgun.

Hit in the cross-fire were Wilson and three other people, who police refused to identify because they were innocent bystanders. All the wounded were in stable condition Sunday, police said.

Police said Johnson admitted being a member of the white supremacist gang. But his 18-year-old girlfriend, Michelle, defended Johnson in an interview Sunday. Michelle, who declined to give her last name, said Johnson, the father of her infant child, is “not this creature they’ve made him out to be.”

The girlfriend said Johnson, an air-conditioning technician, went to the party with several friends and that he talked briefly with members of a white supremacist gang, but she denied that her boyfriend was a member. She said he was drinking beer with other residents about 11 p.m., nearly an hour before the shooting erupted.

“Jeff has no racial problems with anybody,” she said.

Residents of Johnson’s Canoga Park apartment complex--home to whites, blacks, Latinos and Asians--also expressed disbelief that the man was involved in a racist gang or had anything to do with the gunfight.

“He’s the last person I figure would do something like that,” neighbor Mike Wong said. “Jeff is not one of those types.”