A former KKK grand dragon shouting anti-Semitic slurs slaughtered three people at a Jewish center and Jewish retirement home Sunday in a town outside Kansas City, authorities said.
The Passover-eve gunfire first erupted in a parking lot at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City in Overland Park, Kan. — where kids were auditioning for roles in the play “To Kill a Mockingbird” at about 1 p.m., officials said.
The 70-year-old suspect — who did not know the victims — was seen yelling “Heil Hitler” as he was loaded into a police car after his arrest, KSHB-TV reported. Authorities identified him as Fraiser Glenn Cross of Aurora, Mo.
The Southern Poverty Law Center said “Cross” is an alias and that the suspect’s real name is Frasier Glenn Miller.
Rabbi Herbert Mandl, who serves as chaplain for the Overland Park Police Department, told CNN that the suspect asked people whether they were Jewish before opening fire.
Despite that, the two people killed at the Jewish center were not Jewish — they were a 14-year-old boy and his grandfather who attend the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Mo., church spokeswoman Cathy Bien told the Star newspaper.
After slaying two at the Jewish center, the suspect got in his car and headed to the Village Shalom assisted living center, where he killed a woman in her 70s about 15 minutes after the first shooting.
In addition to killing three people, the attacker shot at two other people but missed them.
“Today is a sad and very tragic day,” Overland Park Police Chief John Douglass said.
“As you might imagine, we are only three hours into this investigation. There’s a lot of innuendo and a lot of assertions going around. There is really very little hard-core information.”
Local TV showed the suspect looking disheveled as he was hauled away. He was wearing a T-shirt, a light jacket and glasses.
Authorities immediately suspected the attack was a bias crime. Passover begins on Monday.
“We are investigating it as a hate crime,” said Douglass. “We know it was a vicious act of violence, and we know, obviously, it was at two Jewish facilities. One might make that assumption.”
Rep. Kevin Yoder, who is a member of the church where the grandfather and grandson were killed, said “evil” had struck his community.
“It’s a very tough moment for our community, a tough moment for our church,” Yoder said.
“It’s a reminder that evil can strike at any time, and today it struck here in Overland Park.”
The shotgun-wielding suspect was taken to the Johnson County Detention Center.
“We have no indication he knew the victims,” Douglass said.
Amy Rasmussen of Lee’s Summit, Mo., told the Kansas City Star that she was at Village Shalom to do laundry for her grandmother.
“[People] were told by one of the staff that it was a tornado warning . . . and stay away from the windows,” Rasmussen said.
The shootings took the quiet Kansas City suburb by complete surprise.
“This was, unfortunately, totally unexpected,” Douglass said.
“If we had the slightest hint it was going to happen we would have done everything we could to stop it.”
With Post Wire Services