ad info




CNN.com
 MAIN PAGE
 WORLD
 ASIANOW
 U.S.
 LOCAL
 POLITICS
 WEATHER
 BUSINESS
 SPORTS
 TECHNOLOGY
 NATURE
 ENTERTAINMENT
 BOOKS
 TRAVEL
 FOOD
 HEALTH
 STYLE
 IN-DEPTH

 Headline News brief
 daily almanac
 CNN networks
 CNN programs
 on-air transcripts
 news quiz

  CNN WEB SITES:
CNN Websites
 TIME INC. SITES:
 MORE SERVICES:
 video on demand
 video archive
 audio on demand
 news email services
 free email accounts
 desktop headlines
 pointcast
 pagenet

 DISCUSSION:
 message boards
 chat
 feedback

 SITE GUIDES:
 help
 contents
 search

 FASTER ACCESS:
 europe
 japan

 WEB SERVICES:
US

L.A. shooting suspect surrenders in Las Vegas

furrow
Police have identified Furrow, right, as the shooting suspect

InteractiveINTERACTIVE:
The hunt for the community center gunman

Gunfire shatters another U.S. community

related videoRELATED VIDEO
CNN's Walter Rodgers has the Israeli reaction to the shooting at the Jewish community center (August 11)
Windows Media 28K 80K


       Windows Media Real

       28 K 80 K
iconRELATED AUDIO:
Holy Cross Medical Center describe the 5-year-old boy's injuries

219K/20 sec. AIFF or WAV sound
 ALSO:
Tearful parent and child reunions after gunfire

chat iconMESSAGE BOARDS:
Mass shootings

 Buford Furrow:

Full name: Buford O'Neal Furrow. Some accounts spell his middle name Oneal; he's also known as Buford O. Furrow Jr. Some people call him Neal.

Description: 37 years old; 5 feet, 9 inches tall; 185 pounds; brown, balding hair.

Background: Grew up in Lacey, Washington, a community in Thurston County, 60 miles south of Seattle; family lives in a mobile home on 5 to 7 acres of property. Neighbors say Furrow had recently been living with his parents.

 

Shooting victims recovering

August 11, 1999
Web posted at: 2:19 p.m. EDT (1819 GMT)


In this story:

Relationship with widow of hate group founder

In psychiatric hospital

Manhunt spreads

Condition of wounded

Washington state roots

Site of shooting to reopen

RELATED STORIES, SITES icon



LOS ANGELES (CNN) -- Buford Furrow, the suspect police had sought in the shooting at a Los Angeles-area Jewish community center, turned himself in to authorities in Las Vegas on Wednesday, sources told CNN.

Senior FBI officials in Washington said Furrow was alone when he surrendered at the FBI field office.

"It was just a walk-in," a senior official told CNN. "There were no negotiations."

Authorities also said Furrow would be charged in the slaying of a postal worker who was shot near the community center.

Five people were wounded at the community center. Afterward, information surfaced linking Furrow to hate groups in the U.S. Northwest.

News reports said the Washington state native belonged to, or was once associated with, the groups Aryan Nation, the Order and Christian Identity.

He is listed in a database maintained by the Southern Poverty Law Center of people connected with radical groups, said Mark Potok, a researcher with the center based in Montgomery, Alabama.

Potok said Furrow was a member of Aryan Nation in 1995, and said he has a photo of Furrow in a Nazi uniform, taken that year at the white supremacist group's compound in Hayden Lake, Idaho.

Relationship with widow of hate group founder

Meantime, newspapers in Washington state reported that Furrow once lived with Debbie Mathews, widow of Robert J. Mathews, founder of the Order, a neo-Nazi hate group. Furrow and Debbie Mathews reportedly met at an Aryan Nation gathering.

The Seattle Times said that until about a year ago they lived with Mathews' teen-age son in Metaline Falls, located in northwestern Washington near the Idaho border.

"He was very much a racist," said a former Metaline Falls neighbor, an unidentified woman quoted by the Seattle Times.

In yet another development, a van believed driven by Furrow contained a book, "War Cycles, Peace Cycles," written by Richard Kelly Hoskins, who Potok called "one of the principal ideologues of Christian Identity."

Christian Identity is a group with religious overtones that considers white people superior to Jews and nonwhites.

"Hard-line Identity adherents believe that in order for Christ to return to Earth, the globe must be swept clean of satanic forces -- meaning Jews, homosexuals and a whole laundry list of other enemies," Potok said.

In psychiatric hospital

In November, according to the Seattle Times, Furrow tried to commit himself to a psychiatric hospital in a Seattle suburb, but was reluctant to submit to inpatient treatment and, at one point, pulled a knife on several staffers.

Court records show Furrow was charged with felony assault on November 2, 1998, pleaded guilty to second-degree assault and was sentenced to five months in the King County Jail.

Sources told CNN he was on probation at the time of Tuesday's attack.

Tyrolt
Janet Tyrolt, one of Furrow's neighbors in Lacey, Washington, describes him as a 'perfect gentleman'

111K/10 sec. AIFF or WAV sound
 

Manhunt spreads

Furrow, 37, is suspected of walking into the North Valley Jewish Community Center and firing more than 70 bullets from what was believed to be a 9 mm weapon before escaping.

When the hunt for the suspect spread from California to Washington, the Los Angeles police chief said authorities were "looking wherever the leads will take us."

"If it requires us to go nationally or internationally, we're certainly capable of doing that," Chief Bernard Parks told CNN.

While authorities were investigating the possibility that Tuesday's late-morning attack was a hate crime, Parks said authorities knew of no "specific motive."

"The suspect did not make any comments before firing at the victims," he said.

Condition of wounded

The wounded included three young boys attending day camp, a 16-year-old counselor and a 68-year-old receptionist.

The most seriously injured was a 5-year-old boy, who was shot in the abdomen and leg. He was in critical condition after six hours of surgery, and his prognosis for recovery was considered fair.

The other two boys, ages 6 and 8, and the teen-age counselor were hospitalized in stable condition. The receptionist, Isabelle Shalometh, went home Tuesday night.

Washington state roots

Furrow grew up in Lacey, Washington, near the state capital of Olympia.

His family still lives there, and neighbors said Furrow had recently been living with his parents.

overview house
FBI agents visited a Lacey, Washington, house believed to be the home of the suspect's father  

On Tuesday night, FBI agents visited the home and searched the area.

Agents also interviewed neighbors Janet and Tim Tyrolt. Mrs. Tyrolt told reporters Furrow was " a perfect gentleman" she first met two or three months ago.

As recently as 1994, the Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported, Furrow had lived in Rosamond, California, a town about 40 miles from the scene of the community center attack in Granada Hills.

The suburban San Fernando Valley community is about 30 miles northwest of downtown Los Angeles.

Police said that after the shootings the gunman fled in a red van and, minutes later, stole a green car near the Van Nuys airport.

Investigators followed his trail, from the shell casings that littered the community center's lobby to the abandoned red- and-white van. In addition to the Hoskins literature, it was filled with ammunition, bulletproof vests, explosives and freeze-dried food.

The hunt next led police to a green Toyota Corolla that was believed to have been stolen and then left in front of a hotel in Chatsworth, a few miles from the community center. Police said they found weapons in the car.

Officers surrounded the hotel, but the search ended after four hours. "We were so close but still he managed to get away," Cmdr. David Kalish said.

The abandoned van, which had a Washington state license plate, was purchased Saturday in Tacoma, Washington, according to the used-vehicle dealer who sold it. Kalish identified Furrow as the buyer.

Site of shooting to reopen

Officials at the North Valley Jewish Community Center told CNN the facility would reopen as soon as police investigators allow it.

Meantime, a summer program for youngsters was to resume Wednesday at an Episcopal church next door.

Correspondents Ann McDermott, Charles Feldman, Jim Hill, Siobhan Darrow and Greg LaMotte contributed to this report



RELATED STORIES:
Suspect identified in California shootings, hunt intensifies
August 11, 1999
Gunman eludes police after shooting 5 at Jewish community center
August 10, 1999
3 shot dead in Alabama, suspect arrested
August 5, 1999
Suspect in Atlanta shooting spree dead
July 29, 1999
Midwest shooting spree ends with apparent suicide of suspect
July 5, 1999
4 shot at Georgia high school
May 20, 1999
Gunmen open fire at Colorado school; some students trapped
April 20, 1999

RELATED SITES:
The Los Angeles Police Department
Los Angeles City Fire Department
Temple Beth Torah of Granada Hills
Providence Holy Cross Medical Center
Note: Pages will open in a new browser window
External sites are not endorsed by CNN Interactive.

 LATEST HEADLINES:
SEARCH CNN.com
Enter keyword(s)   go    help

Back to the top   © 2001 Cable News Network. All Rights Reserved.
Terms under which this service is provided to you.
Read our privacy guidelines.