A Community United

The community response to the shooting spree that left a Filipino-American mail carrier dead in Chatsworth and three children and two child-care workers wounded at a Jewish Community Center in Granada Hills has been the one light in this dark nightmare.

First came the efforts of police, rescue workers and doctors, the offers to donate blood, the outpouring of support to traumatized families.

Then on Sunday, five days after the shootings, four days after a white supremacist allegedly confessed to the crimes, more than 1,000 people turned out for a rally against hate on the Cal State Northridge campus.

A thousand more are expected at a march against hate this afternoon in West Hills.

U.S. Atty. Gen. Janet Reno was among the speakers at Sunday’s CSUN rally, along with Gov. Gray Davis and Mayor Richard Riordan. But most moving of all were the nonpoliticians, the ordinary men, women and children who pinned blue ribbons on their shirts in honor of the slain Joseph Ileto, waved handmade banners, wiped away tears and applauded speakers, rescuers and victims’ families.

It was a hot afternoon that called out for a nap or an air-conditioned matinee, but instead a thousand Valley residents felt called to set aside their weekend plans and gather together, human symbols of outrage. And of hope.

Today’s mile-long march is sponsored by the San Fernando Valley Interfaith Council, Temple Em Habanim and the San Fernando Valley branch of the NAACP. But the marchers will be ordinary people who refuse to be complacent about what happened Aug. 10. When Buford O. Furrow Jr. turned himself in the day after the shootings, he is said to have told authorities that he wanted his murderous spree to be a “wake-up call” to kill Jews. His heinous acts have instead become a wake-up call for people of conscience to speak out against hatred, racism and violence, to stand up--together--for their community.