Suspect arrested in relation with the killing of three people at two Jewish community centers is former white supremacist Ku Klux Klan member, authorities said.
Frazier Glenn Cross, Jr., 73, was taken into custody after shooting dead a 14-year-old Eagle Scout along with his grandfather at Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City and also fatally killing a woman from Village Shalom, a retirement community. He reportedly fired at five people Sunday afternoon, but missed two of his targets.
The shooting happened around 1 pm a day before Passover, the eight-day holiday that Jews celebrate for their freedom from slavery in Egypt.
"We know it's a vicious act of violence. Obviously two Jewish facilities, one might make that assumption," Overland Park Police Chief John Douglass said at a press conference, reports Reuters. Cross shouted 'Heil Hitler' after police arrested him, according to KSHB.
He has been in the custody on the suspicion of planned murder and will appear in court, Monday afternoon, jail documents show. Cross was arrested after the investigators found him along with three other men in an Ozark mobile home that was filled with hand grenades, automatic weapons and thousands of rounds of ammunition.
In the 1980s, he was sued for threatening African Americans. He was also accused of violating the terms of a court order that settled the lawsuit.
Police clarified that it was early to judge if the killing were incited by anti-Semitism. He reportedly used a shotgun and other firearms for the killing, officials said.
Family members of the first two victims identified them. Will Corporon, son of slain Dr. William Lewis Corporan, and uncle of 14-year-old Reat Griffin Underwood, issued a statement saying both were shot dead outside the community center in Overland Park, the Associated Press reported. Both of them were Christian.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, an organisation that tracks hate groups, stated that Cross often used false name such as Glenn Miller or Frazier Glenn Miller. He was also a former Grand Dragon of the Carolina Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.
According to his profile on the SPLC, Cross had previously made several comments on white supremacy.
The SPLC also stated that Cross left high school as a senior to join the Army. He then served in Vietnam twice in his army career expanding 20 years. He was a member of the elite Green Berets for 13 years before he was forced to retire due to his KKK affiliation in 1979.
In following years he joined a neo-Nazi group, 'The Order' that supported violence against Blacks and Jews among others. The SPLC states that he unsuccessfully ran in the Democratic primary for North Carolina governor in 1984 and as a Republican for a state Senate seat in 1987.
