Shooting Victim’s Father Joins Drive to Pass Hate Crime Bills

There on Capitol Hill, standing beside Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (D-Mass.), Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle (D-S.D.) and House Minority Leader Richard A. Gephardt (D-Mo.) was Alan Stepakoff, “just a father” from Northridge.

Because he is the father of a 6-year-old boy shot at a Jewish community center in Granada Hills in August, he was the main draw at a gathering Wednesday designed to step up the pressure on Congress to pass hate crimes legislation.

“Why should I or any other parent in this country have to worry when we drop our children off in the morning whether the next time we see them, they’ll be ravaged by the violence of hate?” Stepakoff asked.

He joined a group of Democratic lawmakers upset that Republicans have thwarted efforts to expand federal hate crime laws to cover violent acts based on sexual orientation, gender and disability. Proposed legislation also would expand federal powers to assist local and state authorities in investigating and prosecuting crimes directed at individuals based on their race, religion or national origin.

The legislation has been cited by Democrats in an escalating effort to depict Republican congressional leaders as insensitive to minorities and women, an accusation that GOP leaders deny.

The dispute over alleged GOP insensitivity took a new twist Wednesday when Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.) called the Capitol police to remove from a hearing several congresswomen who had tried to present him with a letter supporting an international treaty against gender discrimination.

The lawmakers, led by Rep. Lynn C. Woolsey (D-Petaluma), accused Helms of blocking action on the “U.N. Convention to Eliminate All Forms of Discrimination Against Women,” submitted to the Senate five years ago.

As that dispute was breaking out, Stepakoff was walking the Capitol hallways putting a human face on the hate-crime legislation.

“I can’t tell you how it tears a father’s heart to think of his little boy lying on the ground, unable to get up, hoping that someone would come and carry him off to safety,” he said at a news conference.

Stepakoff said his son, Joshua, is doing well physically.

“He’s doing the things that a 6-year-old does.” But mentally, Stepakoff said, “he is suffering a little shell-shock. Loud noises bother him.”

Stepakoff, 46, also visited several congressmen, including his own--Rep. Howard P. “Buck” McKeon (R-Santa Clarita), whose district includes the North Valley Jewish Community Center.

McKeon has not taken a position on the legislation, said his spokesman, David Foy. But he said the measure would not have had any effect on the Jewish center shootings because the suspect is already eligible for the death penalty.

White supremacist Buford O. Furrow Jr. has been charged with murder by Los Angeles County and federal prosecutors in the death of Joseph Ileto, a Filipino American letter carrier who was slain after the wounding of Joshua and four other people at the center.

Current law gives federal authorities the right to investigate and prosecute hate crimes directed at an individual because of race, religion or national origin, and if the crime is committed on federal property or while the victim is exercising a federally protected right.

“It’s not apparent that you have federal jurisdiction in the [community center] case, even though it is apparent the perpetrator was motivated by religion,” said Michael Lieberman, Washington counsel for the Anti-Defamation League. “Why should there be a question about whether there is federal jurisdiction in a circumstance where the targets were clearly selected because of religion?”

President Clinton, in vetoing a spending bill for the departments of Commerce, Justice and State on Tuesday, cited the absence of the hate crimes legislation as one reason.

The Senate in July included the legislation in the bill, but the House did not. House-Senate negotiators then dropped the hate crimes provision from the bill.

Critics say hate crimes can be prosecuted under existing state laws and therefore the legislation is “redundant.”

“We want to keep the focus on criminal behavior, not criminal motives,” said House Majority Leader Dick Armey (R-Texas).

*

Times staff writer Janet Hook contributed to this story.