The shooting deaths of three persons Sunday near the Jewish Community Center and Village Shalom in Overland Park will be treated as a hate crime, federal and Johnson County officials said today.
The three victims of the shootings were identified as Reat Griffin Underwood, 14, Stilwell, Kan.; his grandfather, Dr. William Corporon, 69, Overland Park, Kan., both of whom were in the parking lot near the Jewish Community Center; and Terri (Hastings) LaManno, 53, Kansas City, Mo., who was visiting her mother at Village Shalom.
President Obama expressed his condolences to the victims and the people of Overland Park today and Sunday.
The man in custody, Frazier Glenn Cross, also known as Frazier Glenn Miller, 73, of Aurora, Mo., has connections to white supremacist groups.
On Sunday, a human rights activist from Kansas City, Kan., Alvin Sykes, called for a federal criminal civil rights investigation into the shooting deaths.
On Monday, Leonard Zeskind of the Institute for Research and Education on Human Rights, stated that the suspect in the past had created a heavily armed paramilitary organization in North Carolina, and that IREHR seeks “complete justice” in this case.