KANSAS CITY (EJP)—The man who killed three people on the eve of Passover at two Jewish facilities near Kansas City is a former Ku Klux Klan leader with a history of hatred for Jews, law enforcement officials said.
Frazier Glenn Cross, 73, faces local and federal prosecution on hate crime charges after his arrest on Sunday for a shooting spree that killed a teenager and his grandfather outside a Jewish community center, and a woman visiting her mother at a nearby Jewish retirement home.
He was charged with one count of capital murder and one count of first-degree premeditated murder. The capital murder charge carries the possibility of a life sentence or the death penalty.
Cross yelled, ‘’Heil Hitler’’ after opening fire outside a Jewish community center and nearby Village Shalom retirement community in Overland Park, a Kansas City suburb, killing a 14-year-old boy and his grandfather as well as a woman visiting her mother.
The attack came a day before Pessach, the Jewish holiday of Passover.
He was booked into the Johnson County jail on suspicion of premeditated first-degree murder Sunday evening, but had not been formally charged. The paper reported that public records showed that Cross is a resident of Aurora, Mo., a small town southwest of Springfield.
Cross is a known white supremacist and known for his anti-Semitic thoughts. He is a former grand dragon of the Carolina Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. Cross made headlines in the 2010 election campaign for his racist and anti-Semitic campaign ads.
The family of two of the three people who died in the shooting released a statement Sunday identifying them as Dr. William Lewis Corporon and his 14-year-old grandson, Reat Griffin Underwood. They were both Christian, and the family thanked members of their church congregation, among other people, for their support.
Police said it was too early to determine a motive, but a leading anti-hate group said the suspect arrested in the shooting was a longtime anti-Semite.
“We know it’s a vicious act of violence. Obviously two Jewish facilities, one might make that assumption,” Overland Park Police Chief John Douglass told a press conference. The FBI has been called in to help with the investigation, he said.
“We are investigating it as a hate crime. We’re investigating it as a criminal act. We haven’t ruled out anything. … Again, we’re three hours into it,” he said.
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) said it warned last week of the increased possibility of violent attacks against community centers during the coming weeks, “which coincide both with the Passover holiday and Hitler’s birthday on April 20, a day around which in the United States has historically been marked by extremist acts of violence and terrorism.”
Rabbi Herbert Mandl, a chaplain with the Overland Park Police Department said that the shooter specifically targeted Jews, asking his victims about their religion before shooting them.
“Asking someone if you are Jewish before shooting sounds very much like a hate crime,” Mandl said. The rabbi also lamented the timing of the attacks, coming just a day before Passover.
Multiple reports said that during his arrest, the suspect yelled “Heil Hitler” asTV cameras were rolling.
Michael Siegal, chair of the Jewish Federations of North America, said in a statement that “no community should have to face a moment such as this one.”
“Today, on the eve of Pesach, we are left to contemplate how we must continue our work building a world in which all people are free to live their lives without the threat of terror,” he said.
The Jewish Community Center, which is also the site of Kansas City’s only Jewish community day school, the Hyman Brand Hebrew Academy, was a hub of activity on Sunday.
Several youth groups were meeting, some people were auditioning in the facility’s theater for a music production, people were exercising in the center’s gym, and the academy was preparing for a school dance. Many non-Jewish people regularly participate in the facility’s activities.
Bailey Wainestock, 16, was one of nine teenagers attending a youth organization meeting at the community center when the shooting took place. They barricaded the door and remained locked in for more than an hour until security officers rushed them out.
“We didn’t know what to think, we were all in shock,” Wainestock was quoted as saying.
The situation was traumatic, said her father, David Wainestock, who rushed to the Jewish center to retrieve her.
Rabbi David Glickman, of the Beth Shalom synagogue in Overland Park, was at home preparing for the Passover holiday when he heard the news of the shooting.
“Everybody is shocked that it would happen here,” said Glickman. “This is a community that enjoys very strong and positive relations between the Jewish community and the rest of the community.”
The Kansas City area has a Jewish community of about 20,000.
President Barack Obama released a statement expressing his grief over the attack, and Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback vowed to bring those responsible to justice.
“My heart and prayers are with all those who were affected by today’s events,” Brownback said in a statement. “We will pursue justice aggressively for these victims and criminal charges against the perpetrator or perpetrators to the full extent of the law.”
Sunday’s are a stark reminder that even as hate groups are on the decline in the United States, some among them are still deadly dangerous.
A leader of ADL has called for institutions across the country to “use this horrible tragedy as a learning experience” and tighten their own security systems so that if “God forbid, this does happen, that the least … harm can come to their people.”
“Unfortunately throughout history, Jews have been a target around the holidays. We always feel it’s necessary for Jewish organizations to try to ramp up security,” the ADL’s Evan Bernstein told CNN.
While anti-Semitic incidents in the United States declined last year, the number of violent incidents went up, according to an ADL study. Thirty-one reported assaults in 2013 included four men in Brooklyn attacking a Jewish man wearing a yarmulke; a group of girls throwing a bottle at a 12-year-old girl, with one of them calling her “dirty Jew”; and an attack on a man in Los Angeles by five men who yelled “Heil Hitler” before striking him, the ADL says.