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LAWSUITS NEWS & LEGAL INFORMATION

Racially Motivated Shooting

Tacoma, WA: (Mar-17-08) Several families brought a lawsuit against the Washington State Department of Corrections, after five children were wounded or traumatized in a 1999 attack on a California Jewish community center. The incident took place when Washington parolee Buford O. Furrow Jr., a self-professed white supremacist with a history of mental illness, shot over 70 rounds into the Granada Hills, CA, community center. The shootout wounded three boys, a teenage girl and a woman. Following that, Furrow Jr., went to the San Fernando Valley neighborhood and killed mailman Joseph Ileto.

Records show that upon being arrested the day following the shootout, he claimed that he wanted to send a wake-up call to America to kill Jews. Sources commented that Furrow was under state supervision in April 1999, after his release from jail on an assault conviction. He had been reporting as directed for several months prior to the August shooting. Following that disaster, he was sentenced to life in prison in 2001.

As part of a settlement reached, the Washington Department of Corrections agreed to pay a $2.25 million package to the families, resolving the lawsuit. The families of the three boys who were wounded and two others, who were there, originally filed a damage claim with the Department of Corrections in 2006 seeking $15 million. Their suit alleged that the department was negligent in failing to supervise Buford by failing to visit his Nisqually home and not discovering firearms and ammunition he had obtained. [TACOMA NEWS TRIBUNE: STATE AGREES TO PAY $2.25 MILLION TO FAMILIES OF SHOOTING VICTIMS OF PAROLEE]


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Published on Mar-17-08


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