Furrow Faces Federal Hate Crime Charges

Federal hate crime charges were filed Thursday against Buford O. Furrow Jr., the man accused of wounding five people at the North Valley Jewish Community Center and later murdering a Filipino American mail carrier during a shooting rampage in August.

Furrow, who reportedly told FBI agents after surrendering that he wanted to send a “wake-up call to America to kill Jews,” was initially indicted only in the postal worker’s slaying, a charge that carries a possible death penalty under federal law.

A superseding indictment returned by a Los Angeles federal grand jury Thursday also accuses the 38-year-old white supremacist of violating all six victims’ civil rights.

In addition to the murder and civil rights charges, the new indictment accuses Furrow of nine weapons violations.

U.S. Atty. Alejandro N. Mayorkas said the case “should send a very clear message that we will not tolerate any violation of federal law, particularly when the constitutional rights of our citizens are at stake.”

The federal public defender’s office did not return phone calls seeking comment.

The charges stemming from the Jewish center shootings are based on a section of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 that makes it a crime to interfere with a person’s right to public accommodations.

The Jewish center is identified in the indictment not as a private religious facility but as “a place of exhibition and entertainment which serves the public.” Mayorkas noted that the center maintains a policy of accepting children of all faiths at its day-care facility, where the shootings took place, and allows the public to use its swimming pool and meeting rooms for a fee. That qualifies it as a place of public accommodation, he added.

The 16-count indictment said the center’s 68-year-old female receptionist, a teenage girl counselor and three small boys were gunned down because of their religion while they were using the facility. Postal carrier Joseph Ileto was shot, the indictment said, to intimidate him and other nonwhites from engaging in jobs free of discrimination, another alleged violation of the 1964 civil rights law.

In the weeks leading up to Thursday’s indictment, the grand jury subpoenaed the founder and several members of Aryan Nations, the white supremacist group that Furrow joined in the early 1990s.

Aryan Nations leader Richard Butler said in an interview last week that he was interrogated about Furrow’s association with the group and about the Christian Identity movement, which subscribes to the view that people of Northern European descent are the true Israelites, tricked out of their birthright by Jews and forced to live with inferiors of other races.

The questioning presumably was intended to establish a motive for Furrow’s alleged actions.

Authorities said he walked into the community center in Granada Hills on Aug. 10 and began firing randomly, wounding his five victims there with quick bursts from an automatic weapon.

He fled in a van loaded with weapons, hijacked another vehicle and drove to Chatsworth, where he shot and killed Ileto, according to investigators.

Furrow eluded a manhunt by taking an $800 cab ride from Los Angeles to Las Vegas, where he turned himself in the next morning.

The U.S. attorney’s office is considering whether to seek the death penalty against Furrow in connection with Ileto’s killing. Any decision must be approved by U.S. Atty. Gen. Janet Reno. A prosecution spokesman said Thursday that no decision is likely before February.

Under Justice Department protocol, Furrow’s defense team from the federal public defender’s office will have an opportunity to make a case for not seeking the death penalty during meetings with the U.S. attorney’s office.

Presumably, the defense will cite mitigating factors, including evidence that Furrow sought to have himself committed to a mental hospital near Seattle last year. He wound up pulling a knife on staff members and served a jail term for assault.

Death penalty cases are rarities in the federal court system, although two are pending in Los Angeles. One involves an inmate accused of killing a guard at Lompoc federal prison and the other involves suspected members of the Mexican Mafia accused of murder in a racketeering scheme.

After his federal trial, Furrow will face state charges of murder, five counts of attempted murder and carjacking, which also could carry the death penalty.

Furrow is being held without bail in Los Angeles.