Notice, in the article below, that the shooter was indicted not only with the assualts, the hate crimes, but in addition, NINE weapons violations. Gun control in action. Another lesson that when heinous murder is your goal, a silly little gun law does not deter.

Hate-crime charges filed in Jewish center shootings

by David Rosenzweig
Los Angeles Times
LOS ANGELES – 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 killing 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,” initially was indicted only in the slaying of postal worker Joseph Ileto, a federal charge that carries a possible death penalty.

The 16-count indictment returned yesterday by a Los Angeles federal grand jury supersedes old charges and accuses the 38-year-old white supremacist of violating all six victims’ civil rights. It also charges Furrow with nine weapons violations.

U.S. Attorney Alejandro 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 Community Center shootings – in which three little boys, a teenage counselor and a 68-year-old receptionist were wounded – 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. Mayorkas said the Jewish center’s policy of accepting children of all faiths at its day-care center, where the shootings took place, and of allowing the general public to use its facilities qualifies it as a place of public accommodation.

The 16-count indictment alleges that the five people shot at the center were targeted because of their religion and that Ileto was shot to intimidate nonwhite people from engaging in jobs free of discrimination, another violation of the 1964 civil-rights law.

In the weeks leading up to yesterday’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 last week 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 U.S. Attorney’s Office still is considering whether to seek the death penalty against Furrow in Ileto’s slaying.

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

Furrow is being held without bail at the detention center in downtown Los Angeles.

Copyright ? 1999 The Seattle Times Company