NEWS STORY: The Los Angeles shootings: A father’s relief, a community’s concern

c. 1999 Religion News Service UNDATED _ It was, said Richard Macales,”a terrible time. I didn’t know what awaited me.” For Macales, a Los Angeles father of five, the drive to the North Valley Jewish Community Center in Los Angeles ended in joy. David, his 3-year-old, was not among the five people _ including three […]

c. 1999 Religion News Service

UNDATED _ It was, said Richard Macales,”a terrible time. I didn’t know what awaited me.” For Macales, a Los Angeles father of five, the drive to the North Valley Jewish Community Center in Los Angeles ended in joy. David, his 3-year-old, was not among the five people _ including three young boys _ wounded when a gunman opened fire at the facility in Los Angeles’ suburban San Fernando Valley.”Thank God he wasn’t hurt,”said Macales, who learned of the Tuesday morning shooting spree when his mother called him at work in the city’s Westwood area. It took him 40 minutes to drive to the scene of the incident in Granada Hills, on Los Angeles’ northern rim.

Did his son appear terribly traumatized by the incident?”We’ll have to see over time what’s going to be. We don’t really know what he saw,”said Macales.


A day after the community center incident, law enforcement officials said 37-year-old Buford O’Neal Furrow, described as a white supremacist, surrendered to authorities in Las Vegas and confessed to the shootings.

Furrow was also being charged in the slaying of a Los Angeles postal worker, 39-year-old Joseph Ileto, who was killed about an hour after the community center shootings. No motive for Ileto’s shooting was immediately given.

A 68-year-old receptionist, a 16-year-old camp counselor and three boys ages 5 and 6 were wounded at the Jewish community center. The 5-year-old, the most seriously wounded with abdomen and leg injuries, was listed in critical condition Wednesday (Aug. 11) after surgery.

A Las Vegas FBI official quoted Furrow as saying he wanted the shootings to serve as a”wake-up call to America to kill Jews.” The Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Ala., which keeps track of extremists, said Furrow belonged to the Aryan Nations supremacist group in 1995. The Spokane Spokesman Review reported that Furrow once lived in Metaline Falls, Wash., formerly a haven for another supremacist organization, the Order.

Furrow was also reported to have had a relationship with Debbie Mathews, the widow of the Order founder, Robert J. Mathews, who died in a shootout with federal agents in 1984. The Order has been linked to the 1984 murder of Alan Berg, a Jewish talk-show host in Denver.

Jewish leaders were quick to react Wednesday (Aug. 11) to the community center shooting.

Dr. Mandell I. Ganchrow, president of the Orthodox Union, said he was”horrified at the occurrence of yet another violent, anti-Semitic and vicious attack.” In June, three Northern California synagogues were set ablaze, allegedly by two brothers with supremacist links. In July, six Jews were shot near Chicago by a gunman who attacked blacks and Asians as well during a Midwest spree.”We call on all law enforcement agencies to thoroughly investigate and initiate proceedings to bring to justice all the perpetrators who participated in these recent violent acts against members of the Jewish and other minority communities,”Ganchrow said from New York.

Rabbi Marc Schneier, president of the North American Board of Rabbis, placed the Jewish community center shooting in the context of the series of mass shooting incidents that have plagued the nation in recent months, including Littleton, Colo., and Atlanta.


He called for a national summit of religious leaders to address”the growing epidemic of random shootings.””Hatred and bigotry must be uprooted from our midst,”he said.

Some Jewish leaders said the shootings underscored the need for greater gun control.”In the wake of this shooting, and all of those that have proceeded it, there can be no higher priority for our Congress than preventing guns from falling into the hands of those who seek to perpetuate the culture of violence,”said Rabbi David Saperstein, director of the Washington-based Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism.”It is our most pressing moral imperative.” In the wake of the shootings, Jewish leaders sought to calm the community’s fear.”When something like this happens, we always tell our people to be careful,”said Emily Grotta, a spokeswoman for the Union of American Hebrew Congregations, Reform Judaism’s New York-based synagogue umbrella group.”But the truth is this could happen anywhere. So we also caution against going overboard in reaction. The last thing we want to do is to teach our children to live in fear,”she said.

Robin Ballin, marketing director for the Jewish Community Centers Association of North America, said the 275 individual JCCs across the United States and Canada had been advised to consult with local law enforcement officials before beefing up security.”We won’t say just post armed guards. Who wants to come to a facility in that climate?”said Ballin, also based in New York.

JCCs serve as recreational, educational, cultural and social centers for the Jewish community. Non-Jews may also join. The centers also house day care and summer day camp programs of the sort that young David Macales was enrolled in.

A second Macales child, 2-year-old Aaron, also attends a day care program at the North Valley facility three days a week. Tuesday, his mother, Beverly Macales, took Aaron shopping with her rather than dropping him off at the center for the morning.”Even after I found out David was fine, I was afraid for Aaron,”said Richard Macales.”Thank God Beverly took him to the mall with her. You never know what might have been.”

DEA END RIFKIN

Donate to Support Independent Journalism!

Donate Now!