Authorities in the central U.S. state of Kansas have identified a longtime white supremacist as the suspect in the killing of three people Sunday outside a Jewish community center and a Jewish retirement center.
Frazier Glenn Cross is due to appear in court Monday on charges of premeditated murder.
Police say 73-year-old Cross used a shotgun to kill a man and a teenage boy in the parking lot of the community center in the Kansas City suburb of Overland Park, Kansas. They say he then drove to the nearby retirement community and killed a woman before being arrested at an elementary school.
Police Chief John Douglass said Sunday authorities were not ready to call the shooting a hate crime.
"It's too early in an investigation to try to label it, we know it's a vicious act of violence and, you know, obviously two Jewish facilities, one might make that assumption but we're going to have to know more about it before we label it," said Douglass.
President Barack Obama said the shooting was "horrific" and "heartbreaking," and expressed his support and that of his wife, Michelle, for the victims' families.
In the 1980s, Cross led a chapter of the white supremacist Ku Klux Klan and another group called the White Patriot Party. He was sentenced to five years in prison for threatening war against Jews, blacks, homosexuals and government officials.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, a prominent U.S. civil rights organization, said it earlier sued Cross for "using intimidation tactics against African Americans." The group said the two parties reached an agreement for his group to stop operating as a paramilitary organization, but that he violated the order and was sentenced to six months in prison for contempt.
Cross, who has also gone by the name Glenn Miller, has also made several unsuccessful runs for political office. In 2010, he campaigned for a U.S. Senate seat representing Missouri, using ads that disparage Jews and other minorities.
Frazier Glenn Cross is due to appear in court Monday on charges of premeditated murder.
Police say 73-year-old Cross used a shotgun to kill a man and a teenage boy in the parking lot of the community center in the Kansas City suburb of Overland Park, Kansas. They say he then drove to the nearby retirement community and killed a woman before being arrested at an elementary school.
Police Chief John Douglass said Sunday authorities were not ready to call the shooting a hate crime.
"It's too early in an investigation to try to label it, we know it's a vicious act of violence and, you know, obviously two Jewish facilities, one might make that assumption but we're going to have to know more about it before we label it," said Douglass.
President Barack Obama said the shooting was "horrific" and "heartbreaking," and expressed his support and that of his wife, Michelle, for the victims' families.
In the 1980s, Cross led a chapter of the white supremacist Ku Klux Klan and another group called the White Patriot Party. He was sentenced to five years in prison for threatening war against Jews, blacks, homosexuals and government officials.
The Southern Poverty Law Center, a prominent U.S. civil rights organization, said it earlier sued Cross for "using intimidation tactics against African Americans." The group said the two parties reached an agreement for his group to stop operating as a paramilitary organization, but that he violated the order and was sentenced to six months in prison for contempt.
Cross, who has also gone by the name Glenn Miller, has also made several unsuccessful runs for political office. In 2010, he campaigned for a U.S. Senate seat representing Missouri, using ads that disparage Jews and other minorities.
