5-YEAR-OLD BOY UPGRADED TO FAIR CONDITION.

Byline: Dominic Berbeo Staff Writer

A week after being critically injured by a hail of bullets, 5-year-old Benjamin Kadish was upgraded to fair condition Tuesday at Childrens Hospital Los Angeles, where his father issued a statement thanking all those involved in the recovery.

``This heinous act of violence, born of hate, has gone full circle to become a birth of compassion and tolerance,'' hospital spokesman Steve Rutledge read from a statement by Charles Kadish.

Benjamin was wounded along with two other young boys, a 16-year-old counselor and an elderly receptionist at the North Valley Jewish Community Center in Granada Hills.

Tuesday marked the first day Benjamin was able to sit up and move around the hospital in a wheelchair, said Rutledge.

Buford O'Neal Furrow Jr., who has been linked to white supremacist groups, allegedly fired some 70 rounds from a semiautomatic weapon at the center before going on to kill postal worker Joseph Ileto in Chatsworth.

He then traveled to Las Vegas, where he turned himself in and confessed to the shootings the next day, authorities said.

Since the shootings, government officials and human rights groups have vowed to step up the fight against hate crimes with new legislation and educational efforts.

Benjamin received the most serious injuries in the shooting at the center, and was still shaken up after a week in intensive care, hospital personnel said.

The Kadish family has been reluctant to speak publicly in the aftermath of the shooting, but Tuesday's statement was full of thanks.

``No child or family of any religion or ethnicity should ever have to experience the trauma that we have,'' Charles Kadish said.

He thanked public safety officers and hospital staffers for their ``tenacious determination'' to save Benjamin, who is undergoing therapy and is due to leave the hospital by next week.