Hundreds Honor Slain Postman, Decry Racism

They numbered in the hundreds, people who would not allow themselves to forget a man who had apparently been killed only because his skin was not white and he worked for the U.S. government.

One by one Saturday, dozens approached the mother of Joseph Santos Ileto, the Filipino American postal worker shot Aug. 10, allegedly by white supremacist Buford O. Furrow Jr., and told her how they felt.

Angry. Confused. Hurt. But most of all, defiant, unwilling to let such blind hatred remain the lingering memory of Ileto’s death.

“We aren’t going to be cowed by people like Furrow,” said Janette Anderson of Chatsworth, a Filipina who is married to an African American. She said she wanted their 7-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, to see a different side of what Furrow had wrought. “The small segment of society that feels like him is just not going to get to us. We have to fight back.”

They spoke at a pancake breakfast outside a Chatsworth rail station.

A caravan of letter carriers rolled up in their white and blue trucks and presented the family with hundreds of letters from people all over the world. It was just a fraction of those that had been sent, many of them free greeting cards donated to residents along Ileto’s old route. They then handed Ileto’s mother, Lilian, his navy blue mail satchel.

“We appreciate what you have done for us,” she said. “Thank you.”

The head of the Chatsworth Chamber of Commerce handed the family checks totaling $5,000--just a small portion of the money pouring in to help them.

Politicians such as Rep. Brad Sherman (D-Sherman Oaks), state Sen. Richard Alarcon (D-Sylmar) and Assemblyman Bob Hertzberg (D-Sherman Oaks) spoke of the need for tougher laws to combat the spread of guns and hate. Postal workers were each handed a long-stemmed red rose.

“It’s overwhelming to see this,” said Louie Garcia, a letter carrier and colleague of Ileto from the Chatsworth post office. “It’s wonderful to know the community cares.”

Many of those in attendance lived along the route Ileto was walking that day and said they would never forget the soft-spoken man who allegedly became Furrow’s “target of opportunity” in a Chatsworth driveway as he delivered their mail. Ileto, described by friends and family as a hard-working man who was a devoted son and brother, was 39 years old.

The organizers of the event, Jon Lauritzen and Jane Lowenthal, said they wanted to show that Furrow, a member of the Aryan Nations, had come to the wrong place to spread his message of hate. According to Ileto’s brother, Ismael, they succeeded.

“We need to be united against the hatemongers out there,” he said. “This is what America stands for.”