5 KIDS HURT IN L.A. JCC SHOOTING AWARDED $2.25M

Five children hurt in a Los Angeles-area JCC shooting have been awarded a total of $2.25 million (JTA)
Five children hurt in a Los Angeles-area JCC shooting have been awarded a total of $2.25 million.

The children, all under 10 years old at the time, were injured physically and emotionally when parolee Buford Furrow Jr., 46, fired more than 70 rounds at the North Valley Jewish Community Center in 1999.

Under a settlement reached last week, the Washington State Department of Corrections will pay the families who had filed a $15-million claim against the agency for not properly supervising Furrow, who had been amassing firearms in his home, The Los Angeles Times reported Saturday.

Furrow, a self-avowed white supremacist, had tried to commit himself to a psychiatric hospital in Washington state in 1998 but threatened staff members with a knife. He was arrested, pleaded guilty and served 5 1/2 months in prison for assault with a deadly weapon.

The gunman told police the JCC attack was a "wake-up call to America to kill Jews," according to the Times.

Furrow also shot a mail carrier to death at point-blank range immediately following his JCC rampage. He is serving a life sentence in prison.

LOS ANGELES JCC ATTACKED

Los Angeles JCC attacked with Molotov cocktail (JTA)
A Molotov cocktail was placed or thrown at a Jewish community center in suburban Los Angeles.

No one was injured in Monday's incident at the Bernard Milken Jewish Community Campus in West Hills, Calif., the Los Angeles Daily News reported.

The incident occurred in the back of the building at about 2 A.M. Monday, according to Paul Goldenberg, the national director of the Secure Community Network, a non-profit organization that works as a security adviser for hundreds of Jewish institutions. The network has been in contact with law enforcement agencies regarding the attack.

It is unclear who was behind the attack, but the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and local police are investigating surveillance tapes, Goldenberg said. The FBI also is investigating the incident.

John Fishel, president of the Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles, which is a primary funder of the JCC, told the Daily News the federation agency is very concerned about the attack.

"We take this type of thing very seriously," Fishel said. "Our major concern is for the safety and the security of those who work and frequent the center."

SWASTIKAS IN L.A.

Swastikas in L.A. (JTA)
Los Angeles police are investigating spray-painted swastikas and anti-Semitic graffiti in an upscale San Fernando Valley neighborhood.

Residents discovered the vandalism early Thursday morning, which included the words “Burn Jews” painted in front of four homes along a two-mile stretch of walls in the suburban communities of Encino and Tarzana.

Police are treating the incidents as possible hate crimes.

“I’m frightened,” Judy Silver, a neighbor whose home was not affected, told reporters. “I don’t know if it’s a sign of the times or if it’s just kids, because we’re surrounded by two schools.”

Amanda Susskind, regional director of the Anti-Defamation League, said her office had received a large volume of calls by outraged citizens.

ADL associate director Matthew Friedman said, “A hate crime like this targets not just those who live in the home, it targets the entire community.”

GUILTY PLEA BY MOSLEMS PLANNING L.A. SYNAGOGUE ATTACKS

'We Are Only Servants of Allah' (LGF)

Two of the four Muslims who plotted to attack southern California military bases and Jewish centers are pleading guilty.

One of four men accused of plotting attacks on Southern California military sites and Jewish targets pleaded guilty Friday to terrorism conspiracy charges.

Levar Haley Washington, 28, admitted committing seditious conspiracy and using a firearm to further that conspiracy. He faces up to life in prison when he is sentenced in April. Another man, Kevin James, was expected to plead guilty to a terrorism charge later Friday. He faces up to 20 years in prison.

Authorities claimed that the plot was hatched in prison and that James, Washington and two others were a cell of radical Muslims planning attacks on military facilities, synagogues and other sites in the Los Angeles area.

Prosecutors assert that James even prepared a press release that the men planned to send out after an attack. “This incident is the first in a series of incidents to come in a plight to defend and propagate traditional Islam in its purity,” James allegedly wrote. “We are not extremists, radicals or terrorists.We are only servants of Allah.”