Washington - State Hit With $15 Million Lawsuit in 1999 Jewish Center Shooting

Washington - Five families with children shot or traumatized in a shooting at a Jewish center in the San Fernando Valley in 1999 have filed a 15 million-dollar claim against Washington state because the shooter was a Washington parolee.

The claim, potentially the precursor for a lawsuit, was filed against the state Department of Corrections, which was then responsible for supervising Buford Furrow Junior, an avowed white supremacist with a history of mental illness.
Furrow is now 44 and serving a life sentence at the federal prison in Marion, Illinois. He had been out of prison for three months and was on probation in Washington at the time of the shooting spree at the North Valley Jewish Community Center in Granada Hills (California).

According to the claim, the state agency should have monitored Furrow sufficiently to prevent him from accumulating the weapons he used, failed to obtain his psychiatric records and assess his mental health, and should have given more attention to court records of his close ties to hate groups.

The claim seeks 3 million dollars for each child.