The man who allegedly killed three people when he opened fire outside a Jewish community center and nearby retirement community in a Kansas City suburb Sunday is reportedly a 73-year-old Missouri man with a history of racist and anti-Semitic statements.
A Johnson County (Kan.) jail official told the Associated Press that authorities had identified the suspect in the shooting in Overland Park as Frazier Glenn Cross, aka Frazier Glenn Miller.
The Kansas City Star reported that Cross 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.
A dispatcher with the Lawrence County Sheriff's Department told the Star Sunday that local authorities were working with Johnson County authorities and the FBI. A woman who answered the phone at a number listed for Frazier Glenn Miller told the paper she did not know where he was and then started to cry.
The Southern Poverty Law Center says he has long been an outspoken white supremacist and was once a "grand dragon" of the Carolina Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.
The group reports on its website that it spoke to Miller's wife, Marge, by phone Sunday and she said police told her that her husband had been arrested in Sunday's attacks.
At a news conference earlier Sunday, Overland Park police chief John Douglass said the suspect was not known to area law enforcement and there was no indication that he knew his victims.
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.
"We take comfort knowing they are together in Heaven," the family said. It asked for privacy to mourn.
Rebecca Sturtevant, a spokeswoman for Overland Park Regional Medical Center, where Reat was taken and where he died, said family members said Corporon and the boy were at the community center so that the high school freshman could try out for KC SuperStar, a singing competition for students.
Douglass said the suspect made several statements to police, "but it's too early to tell you what he may or may not have said." He also said it was too early in the investigation to determine whether there was an anti-Semitic motive for the attacks or if they will be investigated as hate crimes. The Jewish festival of Passover begins Monday.
"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.
Douglass said the suspect first opened fire in the parking lot behind the Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City. Corporon died at the scene and his grandson later died at the hospital. The chief said the suspect then drove to the nearby retirement community, Village Shalom, where he shot and killed a woman or girl. The gunman also shot at two other people during the attacks, but missed them, Douglass said.
Douglass said a shotgun was used in the attacks, and that investigators are also trying to determine if a handgun and assault-style rifle may also have been used.
Police officers were also sent to other Jewish facilities in the area immediately after the shootings, the police chief said.
"Immediately when we learned we had an active shooter we dispatched vehicles to secure and surveil all the active Jewish facilities in the city and other religious institutions which are not Jewish," Douglass said.
The suspect was taken to the Johnson County Detention Center. Johnson County District Attorney Stephen Howe, who attended the news conference along with Barry Grissom, U.S. Attorney for Kansas, said it was too soon to know when the suspect would appear in court.
Corporon, who was a family doctor, leaves behind a wife of 49 years. His grandson, Reat, was an Eagle Scout who loved camping and hunting with his grandfather, father and brother, the family said.
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."
Michael Siegal, chair of the Jewish Federations of North America, also said in an emailed 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.
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The Associated Press contributed to this report.
