1,000 Rally for Shooting Rampage Victims

By TERRY McDERMOTT and ANDREW BLANKSTEIN

Aug. 16, 1999 12 AM PT

TIMES STAFF WRITERS

U.S. Atty. Gen. Janet Reno, Gov. Gray Davis and Los Angeles Mayor Richard Riordan told more than 1,000 people at a Sunday rally for victims of last week’s neo-Nazi shooting spree to renew commitments to rid society of both assault weapons and intolerance.

More concretely, Davis said he would extend state technical and financial aid to improve security at child-care centers and churches.

The rally was organized in the aftermath of last week’s killing of U.S. postal worker Joseph Ileto in Chatsworth and the wounding of three small children and two child-care workers at the North Valley Jewish Community Center.

Buford O. Furrow, a member of the white supremacist group the Aryan Nations, has allegedly confessed to the shootings. An unemployed mechanical engineer from Washington state, Furrow, 37, eluded a citywide manhunt after the Tuesday shootings and took a taxicab to Las Vegas. Once there, he walked into the local FBI office and turned himself in.

Ileto was buried Saturday. All but one of the other victims has been released from the hospital. Benjamin Kadish, the 5-year-old boy nearly killed in the attack, remains hospitalized in serious condition, but was removed from a respirator and began breathing on his own Sunday for the first time since the shooting.

Furrow faces state and federal murder and attempted murder charges. When he turned himself in, he allegedly said he wanted the shootings to be a “wake-up call” to kill American Jews.

Rabbi Jerald Brown of the Temple Ahavat Shalom in Northridge said it was time for those who oppose terror to “issue a wake-up call of our own.”

Throughout the rally, frustration coupled with resolve in many of the words issued both from the rally’s podium and members of the audience.

“It’s better than self-pity and running scared,” said George Fox of West Los Angeles.

Fox, a World War II Army veteran, said he had hoped that the sort of virulent anti-Semitism espoused by people like Furrow had been erased in that war.

“I feel somewhat bitter because as a naive youngster 50 years ago I believed that if we didn’t eliminate anti-Semitism, we could at least control it,” he said.

Cristine Watkins, a 17-year-old African American who grew up in Granada Hills, said it wasn’t only Jews who need to be aware.

“It affects us all, young and old,” she said. “No matter what race you are. When the lights go out, we are all the same color.”

Several speakers urged the audience not to give in to the inevitable desire for revenge, to fight terror with terror. Reno urged the crowd to vigorously confront hatemongers.

“At moments like this, I think back to 1951, when as a 13-year-old, I visited Germany,” she said.

“I asked people who I met how the Holocaust could have happened,” she said. “They told me again and again, it happened because they stood by silently. We cannot stand by.”

Earlier Sunday, in an appearance on CNN’s “Late Edition” program, Reno said she wants prospective gun buyers to be required to take a written and manual test “demonstrating that they know how to safely and . . . to lawfully use [a weapon] under state law.

“And I would have a background check that would make sure they had evidenced the willingness and capacity to do so,” she said.

Davis had to speak over the shouted objections of a man who did not want the government to outlaw any weapons. The man, Irv Rubin of the Jewish Defense League, said innocent people need guns to protect themselves from a coming war. He handed out fliers that warned: “Don’t leave yourself unarmed against those who want to murder you.”

Davis said he was working with legislative leaders on a program that would help plan and pay for greater security at child-care centers and churches. He said the program would be modeled on legislation passed earlier this year that seeks to do the same thing for schools.

He said he wanted to use state funds to match local government and/or philanthropic grants.

The rally was organized by the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, working with the Jewish Community Centers of Greater Los Angeles, the Board of Rabbis of Southern California and the Anti-Defamation League. It was held on the Cal State Northridge campus, in front of the school’s library.

The bright sunny day and easy familiarity of many in the crowd was in contrast to the heavy police presence, including officers stationed on rooftops that overlooked the sprawling green lawn.

Guests at the rally included members of Ileto’s family.

Hillary Davis, a high school student from Sherman Oaks, said she came with her mother because “I just thought it was time our community stood up against people who shoot the children.

“I think we should be standing up all the time. We shouldn’t wait until somebody gets hurt to declare what is right.”