Clinton to Hear of Jewish Center Shootings

Relatives of the victims of the Jewish Community Center shooting are expected to meet with President Clinton tonight to share their personal stories of hate-crime violence.

The families of Benjamin Kadish and Joseph Ileto, as well as relatives of Matthew Shepherd and James Byrd, were invited to the 6:30 p.m. session by White House officials who learned they would be in Washington, D.C., for “Equality Rocks,” a concert sponsored by the Human Rights Campaign Foundation on Saturday at RFK Stadium.

“The president is focused on combating hate crimes through stronger hate-crime legislation,” said David Smith, a spokesman for the Washington, D.C.-based foundation. “This meeting is part of that effort: to speak to the families who have experienced hatred that mushroomed into horrific violence.”

Ismael Ileto of Chino Hills, whose brother Joseph was shot and killed as he delivered mail in a Chatsworth neighborhood--allegedly by avowed white supremacist Buford O. Furrow--said he hopes the meeting will help in the push for tougher hate-crime laws.

“The event that happened with my brother affects the whole nation because he represented the federal government as a postal worker and he was a minority,” Ileto said. “I will do anything I can to pass the 1999 Hate Crime Prevention Act.”

Joseph Ileto was fatally wounded after the bloody shooting rampage at the Jewish Community Center in Granada Hills last August. Benjamin Kadish and two other boys as well as a teenage counselor and an older secretary were injured in the attack allegedly committed by Furrow.

Clinton is also expected to hear from relatives of Shepherd, a gay college student from Wyoming who was beaten to death, and the family of Byrd, an African American from Jasper, Texas, who was dragged to death from the back of a pickup truck.