Parents´ lawsuit against JCC dismissed

LOS ANGELES, Dec. 5 (JTA) — A judge has dismissed a lawsuit filed by the parents of a 5-year old boy severely injured during a shooting rampage at a Jewish center here. The attack in August 1999 by white supremacist Buford O. Furrow Jr. at the North Valley Jewish Community Center wounded five people, with Benjamin Kadish sustaining the most critical injuries. Charles and Eleanor Kadish, the boy´s parents, sued the Jewish center, alleging that it did not provide any security at a facility likely to be a target of anti-Semitic attacks. Los Angeles County Superior Court Judge William MacLaughlin dismissed the suit Tuesday. "I don´t find what has been alleged so far" warrant a case, he said. However, the Kadish parents can have 20 days to amend their lawsuit to address legal weaknesses in the case, MacLaughlin ruled. The parents´ lawyer, Joseph Lovretovich, told the Los Angeles Times that, if necessary, he will ask an appeals court to reconsider the center´s legal obligation to prevent violent crimes by third parties on its premises. Attorney Scott Edelman, representing the JCC, said no one could have anticipated the shooting spree by Furrow, an avowed anti-Semite and white supremacist. Furrow is serving a lifetime sentence, without possibility of parole, for the Jewish center attack and the killing of a mail carrier.