Passover Eve attack: Three dead, one injured; 70-yr-old shooter in custody

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This happened six miles from my house, and I was driving by when the shooting occurred, but wasn't aware of it.

Fox4KC: Suspect in his 70s arrested for murders of 3 people outside Jewish Community Ctr, Village Shalom

OVERLAND PARK, Kan. — A man in his 70s is behind bars, suspected of opening fire outside two Jewish facilities in Johnson County on Sunday, killing three people. Two of the victims were killed outside the Jewish Community Center and the other was killed outside Village Shalom, an assisted living facility in Leawood.

The victims have not been identified, but police say they include two males, shot at the community center, and a female shot and killed at Village Shalom.

The suspect was not being identified Sunday evening but police described him as a white male in his 70s with a beard. Police said he does not live in the area and was not known to them before this day.

The shooting comes the week that begins the Jewish holiday of Passover, and many at the Jewish Community Center wondered if the timing was deliberate and if the crimes are a hate crime.

Overland Park Police Chief John Douglass said his department realized they had an "active shooter" situation and enacted protocols that allowed them to check multiple facilities in the city quickly, enabling them apprehend the suspect quickly. He was found at a Blue Valley School District elementary school in Overland Park, about a mile form Village Shalom.

I got less than a half-mile past the community center when I saw three OPPD patrol cars headed north and realized something must have happened. It occurred to me I saw people running in the JCC parking lot, but I didn't think much of it. That's weird, isn't it? This was going on and I was oblivious, inside my truck, listening to Christian music and having not a clue.

I realize the healing that is going to have to take place in our city. That hasn't occurred to me before, when other incidents of this type have happened, but our city is hurting right now.

Please, during the next few days, please pray for the victims' families, by thankful for our quick-thinking police department, and pray that we as a city take time to pray for healing, and that we turn to God as a community following this tragedy. Thanks.

 

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Fox4KC: Gunman kills 3 outside Jewish centers, suspect heard yelling ‘Heil Hitler’

OVERLAND PARK, Kan. — 73-year-old man Frazier Glenn Cross from Aurora, Missouri, between Joplin and Springfield, is facing charges of premeditated murder, after he was suspected of opening fire outside two Jewish facilities in Johnson County Kan., on Sunday, April 13, resulting in the deaths of three people. ...

Two people shot outside the community center have been identified as 14-year-old Reat Underwood and his grandfather, Dr. William Lewis Corporon. An elderly female shot and killed at Village Shalom has not yet been identified.

The Church of the Resurrection, a Methodist church in Leawood, confirmed that Underwood and Corporon were members of their congregation. They said the two were visiting the Jewish Community Center to participate in auditions for KC SuperStar, an “American Idol” style competition for high school singers in the metropolitan area, which was taking place there on Sunday.

Underwood and Corporon were not even Jewish, though Cross has been identified by Overland Park police as a white supremacist who served time in the Missouri penitentiary for racist and anti-Semitic activities nearly 30 years ago.

Fox News: Missouri man identified as gunman in Kansas Jewish centers shooting

He founded the Carolina Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and was its "grand dragon" in the 1980s before the center sued him for operating an illegal paramilitary organization and using intimidation tactics against blacks. He later founded another white supremacist group, the White Patriot Party.

Miller, an Army veteran and retired truck driver, was the subject of a nationwide manhunt in 1987 after he violated the terms of his bond while appealing a North Carolina conviction for operating a paramilitary camp. The search ended after federal agents found Miller and three other men in an Ozark [Mo.] mobile home, which was filled with hand grenades, automatic weapons and thousands of rounds of ammunition. Miller tried running for U.S. House in 2006 and the U.S. Senate in 2010.

Though I am not in favor of hate crime legislation, and I don't believe Kansas' hate crime rider should be attached to formal charges against Cross -- he killed three people in a single incident, that's enough for the death penalty in our state as it is -- it is obvious hate had a great deal to do with his driving 170 miles to commit what is evident to be a premeditated shooting.

As I asked in the OP, pray for our city, particularly for the families of the victims of this insanity. We all have a great deal to deal with over the coming months.