Community mourns victims of Kansas City shootings
Shooter is identified as prominent white supremacist
The Jewish Federation of Greater MetroWest NJ joined Jewish groups across the nation in mourning the victims of a deadly shooting attack on two Jewish targets in a Kansas City, Kan., suburb.
A prominent white supremacist is suspected of killing a grandfather and his grandson on Sunday at the Jewish Community Center in Overland Park, Kan., and then shooting to death a female resident of Village Shalom, a Jewish assisted-living facility a few blocks away.
“The Greater MetroWest community mourns the tragic loss of life in Kansas City following yesterday’s horrific events, and our sympathies are with the families of the victims,” the federation said in a statement. “No community should ever 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.”
The Southern Poverty Law Center, a hate group monitor, identified the alleged gunman as Frazier Glenn Miller, 73, of Aurora, Mo., and said he was the “grand dragon” of the Carolina Knights of the Ku Klux Klan in the 1980s and subsequently a founder of the White Patriot Party.
The center in a statement Sunday evening said Miller served three years in prison on weapons charges and for plotting the assassination of its founder, Morris Dees.
CBS News also identified the suspect as Miller, and a security source confirmed to JTA that the suspect had a long history in the supremacist movement.
Miller is suspected of killing a grandfather and his grandson on Sunday at the Jewish Community Center in Overland Park, Kan., and then shooting to death a female resident of Village Shalom, a Jewish assisted-living facility a few blocks away.
The family of the victims killed at the JCC identified them as William Lewis Corporon and his 14-year-old grandson, Reat Griffin Underwood, ABC news reported. KSHB, a local TV station, said they were members of the Church of Resurrection.
The JCC was hosting a dance class and an audition for a play, both for teenagers, according to reports.
President Obama in a statement “pledged the full support of the federal government” in the investigation.
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