Accused Tulsa shooter Jake England not racist, mother and attorney say (VIDEO)

The mother and attorney of one of the men charged with muder in the shooting deaths of three black men in Tulsa, Okla., earlier this month are coming to his defense, saying he's not racist and was "a very good kid."

"I'm still devastated from the news. I can't wrap my head around that," Teri Alexander told CNN from a prison in McCloud, Okla., where she's serving an 18-year sentence for arson.

More from GlobalPost: Jake England, Alvin Watts charged with murder in shooting spree

Alexander's 19-year-old son, Jake England, and his friend, Alvin Watts, are charged with first-degree murder and other crimes in the April 6 shooting spree. The shootings came a day after England posted a message lamenting his father's death two years earlier "at the hands of a f–king n—-r."

A judge entered not gulity pleas Monday for the pair and ordered them held without bond until a May 3 court hearing, The Associated Press reported.

In a jailhouse interview released to the AP, England told his attorney Clark Brewster that he has no ill-will toward black people and counts several of them among his friends.

More from GlobalPost: Three people shot to death in Tulsa, possibly because of their race

"I always got along with everybody. It didn't matter what color you (were)," the Tulsa World reported England saying in the video.

Brewster said England is Cherokee Indian and used the racial slur as a way to describe the man who murdered his father.

"The fact that he uses that term and is comfortable in using that term in describing in a real derogatory fashion one person does not make him a racist," Brewster told CNN. "He used the most derogatory term he could in describing the person who shot his dad in the heart."

Community leaders and some Tulsa residents, meanwhile, told the AP they want the death penalty on the table.

"What everyone is after is justice," Ralph Eady, 51, who owns a men's clothing shop near where one victim's body was discovered, told the AP. "They don't care if it's a hate crime, a race crime, white-on-black crime — they want justice. They want the death penalty."