Overland Park, KS – A gunman opened fire at two Jewish
facilities near Kansas City on Sunday, killing three people, police said.
Authorities are investigating
whether the shootings were a hate crime, Overland Park Police Chief John
Douglass told reporters.
“It’s too early in the investigation to try
to label it. We know it’s a vicious act of violence. Obviously, at two Jewish
facilities, one might make that assumption, but we’re going to have to know
more about it,” he said.
Police are investigating
statements that the suspect made after his arrest, Douglass said.
The police chief declined to
provide additional details. Video from CNN affiliate KMBC showed a man who
appeared to be the suspect sitting in the back of a patrol car and shouting,
“Heil Hitler.”
Frazier Glenn Miller is a 73-year-old
man who is known to law enforcement, two federal law enforcement officials told
CNN’s Evan Perez and Shimon Prokupecz. Investigators believe the suspect is
affiliated with white-supremacist groups and was involved in previous
incidents, such as threats.
The shootings occurred at the
Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City in Overland Park, Kansas, and at
the Village Shalom Retirement Community in Leawood, Kansas.
Authorities arrested the
suspect at a nearby elementary school after the shootings, Douglass said. The
suspected shooter is not from Kansas and did not appear to know his victims, he
said.
In this video, he pretty clearly says Heil Hitler, so not really sure why police confused as to motive:
A shotgun was involved in the
shootings, Douglass said. Authorities are investigating whether other weapons
were also involved.
The gunman shot at a total of
five people, Douglass said, but two of them were not injured.
The FBI is at the scene working
with local authorities, FBI spokesman Joel Sealer said.
Rabbi Herbert Mandl, a chaplain
for the Overland Park Police Department, said the victims included a teenager
and an elderly woman.
