A 73-year-old Missouri man has been accused of killing three people at two Jewish facilities in suburban Kansas City on Sunday afternoon, a day before the start of Passover.
Frazier Glenn Cross, of Aurora, Mo. has been identified as the suspect. He is also known as F. Glenn Miller,
according to the Kansas City Star. Authorities arrested Cross after the shooting in the Overland Park, Mo., area as he yelled, "Heil Hitler" in the back of a patrol car.
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William Lewis Corporon, a local doctor, and Reat Griffin Underwood, his 14-year-old grandson, died from wounds they received while in a car at a Jewish community center. A third victim, who was not identified, died from a gunshot wound while in a parking lot of the Village Shalom senior living center.
"We are investigating this as a hate crime,"
Overland Park Police Chief John Douglass told CNN, adding that detectives are still trying to determine the suspect's motivation for the killings.
Cross is scheduled to appear in court on Monday on premeditated first-degree murder charges.
Cross is the founder and former leader of the Carolina Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and the White Patriot Party. In the 1980s, the two operated as paramilitary groups.
"The attacks on the Jewish community centers in Overland Park are a cowardly, unspeakable and heinous act of violence,"
Karen Aroesty, the Anti-Defamation League's St. Louis regional director, said in a statement.
"While it is too early to label these shootings as a hate crime, the fact that two Jewish institutions were targeted by the same individual just prior to the start of the Passover holiday is deeply troubling and certainly gives us pause. We have reached out to local, state and federal law enforcement and stand willing and able to offer guidance and assistance to the community if this incident turns out to have been motivated by anti-Semitism," Aroesty's statement continued.
The FBI, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms are assisting in the investigation.
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