MSNBC STAFF AND WIRE REPORTS
GRANADA HILLS, Calif., Aug. 11 — Buford Oneal Furrow, a member of Northwest neo-Nazi groups suspected of a shooting rampage at a Jewish community center near Los Angeles, surrendered to the FBI in Las Vegas early Wednesday. A source told the Associated Press that the 37-year-old Washington-state man said he intended the attack to serve as “a wake-up call to America to kill Jews.”
As the other victims recover from their wounds, a 5-year-old boy, the most seriously injured victim, fights for his life, NBC's Dan Lothian reports
FURROW WALKED into the FBI office Wednesday morning and said, “You’re looking for me, I killed the kids in Los Angeles,” the source, who spoke on condition of anonymity, told the Associated Press.
The source said Furrow had wrongly assumed he had killed some children in the Tuesday morning shooting at the North Valley Jewish Community Center in the Granada Hills neighborhood near Los Angeles, which left three children and two adults wounded.
Sources told NBC’s Los Angeles affiliate KNBC that Furrow arrived in Las Vegas after an $800 cab ride from Los Angeles.
Los Angeles police scheduled a 1:30 p.m. ET news conference to discuss the surrender.
Earlier, investigators fanned out across California and Washington, searching for Furrow, who had been linked to a red van found near the crime scene that was packed with thousands of rounds of ammunition, flak vests, body armor and survivalist and neo-Nazi literature.
‘AVOWED RACIST’
Mark Potok, a spokesman for the Southern Poverty Law Center, which maintains a database on hate groups, said Wednesday that the group has a file on Furrow and a 1995 photo showing him wearing a Nazi uniform at the Aryan Nations compound in Idaho.
The Seattle Times also reported that Furrow was an “avowed racist” who was a member of the Aryan Nations, a virulently racist and anti-Semitic group. Both the Times and the Spokane Spokesman-Review reported that he had been married to the widow of Robert Mathews, founder of the neo-Nazi group The Order.
The Times also said Furrow attempted to commit himself to a Kirkland, Wash., psychiatric institution in November, but was later convicted of assault with a deadly weapon after pulling a knife on staff members. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported that he was released on probation May 21.
KING-TV in Seattle reported that Furrow, who grew up in Lacey, Wash., and later lived in Lynnwood and Olympia, also is considered a possible suspect in a recent ammunition theft from Ft. Lewis, an Army base near Tacoma.
FBI agents late Tuesday visited the home of Furrow’s parents near Olympia, the state capital, on Tuesday after interviewing neighbors Janet and Tim Tyrolt, Janet Tyrolt said. She said she recognized Furrow from his mug shot on the television news.
“He looked like a normal person,” she told the Post-Intelligencer. “It’s bizarre and scary. It’s hitting close to home.”
LINKS TO HATE GROUPS
The Seattle Times and Spokesman-Review of Spokane both reported that Furrow had a relationship with Debbie Matthews, widow of Order founder Robert Matthews.
The newspapers reported that the couple had been married, but the Times said they did not obtain a marriage license because they did not believe in the laws of the land. The Spokane newspaper quoted Metaline Falls, Wash., town marshal Rick Reiber as saying he understood they had been married around 1996 and later split up.
A neighbor of the couple in Metaline Falls told the Seattle Times that Furrow seemed “pretty nice.”
“But then again, I knew that his beliefs were way out of line,” 82-year-old Meda VanDyke told the newspaper. “They were good neighbors, but, well, I got blue eyes, so I guess that helps.”
The Order, which formed in northeastern Washington, was responsible for the killing of radio talk-show host Alan Berg in Denver, as well as numerous robberies and armored-car stickups that netted more than $4 million. The group was demolished by an FBI sweep in late 1984, an assault in which Order leader Robert Mathews died when his hideout caught fire during a shootout with federal agents on Whidbey Island in Washington state.
After Robert Mathews’ death, 22 Order members were convicted or pleaded guilty after being indicted on racketeering charges.
All of Los Angeles was put on tactical alert Tuesday while officers searched first the Granada Hills neighborhood where the shooting occurred and later, the 7-Star Suites Hotel in nearby Chatsworth, to no avail.
Authorities said the gunman walked into the lobby of the North Valley Jewish Community Center in the San Fernando Valley neighborhood and sprayed about 20 to 30 rounds of gunfire throughout the lobby using a 9 mm semiautomatic Uzi.
He said the gunman then went down a hallway and “sprayed” it before fleeing. The gunman fired about 70 rounds in all, police said.
Police Sgt. John Pasquariello said the first call about the shooting was received at 10:49 a.m. When officials from the Fire Department arrived, they came across an injured adult and child. Police arrived moments later and found three other victims with gunshot wounds; one required air evacuation.
About two dozen members of a SWAT team in flak jackets and armed with rifles conducted an extensive search of the area but did not find the gunman.
Police said a woman was forced from her car at gunpoint shortly after the shooting just a few miles from the shooting scene. They said the car-jacking suspect, who generally fit the description of the gunman, got out of a van and forced the screaming woman out of her green Toyota Corolla. He warned her “don’t scream” and let her run away.
Officers searched the van, which had Washington state plates, and found a large amount of ammunition, bulletproof vests and devices that may be smoke grenades, but no weapons, said Kalish. Contents of the van included metal boxes packed with ammunition, magazines for an assault rifle, a booklet titled “Ranger Handbook” and freeze-dried food.
Numerous Seattle-area news organizations reported that Furrow bought the van in Tacoma, Wash., a week before the shooting.
Police later surrounded the hotel in Chatsworth where the carjacked Toyota was found, but did not find Furrow.
SIX HOURS OF SURGERY
The most seriously injured victim was a 5-year-old boy who was shot in the stomach and leg and lost 30 percent of his blood. He was reported in critical but stable condition early Wednesday after six hours of surgery and his prognosis for recovery was fair, said surgeon Clarence Sutton Jr. at Providence Holy Cross Medical Center.
“He had a great desire to live and we supported that effort,” Sutton said.
Two 6-year-old boys and a 16-year-old girl were in stable condition at hospitals. Center receptionist Isabelle Shalometh, 68, was released from a hospital Tuesday night.
A teacher who spoke to The Associated Press condition of anonymity said the injured receptionist burst into her room with a wounded arm. The teacher said she gathered up her students, who joined hands and fled the building.
About two dozen children were in the center when the gunman opened fire and about 20 small children were led unhurt from the building hand in hand by police officers and taken to a Jewish temple nearby. Older students, who normally would have been at the community center, were on a field trip at the Museum of Tolerance.
Parents rushed to the center and jammed against police lines trying to find out if their children were all right. Some parents wept and hugged one another. One man was handcuffed by officers after slipping under yellow police tape, but he was later released. Authorities used a fire department loudspeaker to announce the whereabouts of children.
“I wanted to cry when I saw him,” said Karen Macofsky, who was reunited with her 11-year-old son and 8-year-old daughter. “But I held back and just hugged him tightly.”
‘IT’S JUST UNBELIEVABLE’
“It’s just unbelievable that these people would target children,” Rabbi Marvin Hier of the Simon Wiesenthal Center in West Los Angeles told reporters.
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“We live in tragic times. There’s no more cold war. And thank God there are no more world wars. But there seems to be a war for the souls of our citizens” in America.
Hier said the “program director” with the children’s center “is in my office right now. And she’s just beside herself. Those were her children.”
At the White House, President Bill Clinton offered his thoughts and prayers to the victims and called on the nation to intensify its resolve to make the country a safer place to live.
“This is another senseless act of gun violence,” he said.
Vice President Al Gore offered Mayor Riordan federal assistance in capturing the gunman and California Gov. Gray Davis said he was forming a task force of state agencies to advise churches, child care centers and other operations that care for children on how to upgrade their security systems. Davis also put up a $50,000 reward for information leading to the suspect’s capture.
Tuesday’s shooting was the latest in a series of shootings in the United States that have aroused widespread concern in recent weeks. The latest occurred last Thursday in Pelham, Ala., where a gunman shot dead three people at two businesses.
[This message has been edited by Kimber Man (edited August 11, 1999).]