FBI to investigate Kansas shooting as hate crime

The Kansas shooter who targeted two Jewish centers and shot three people dead faces local and federal prosecution on hate crimes charges, authorities said Monday.

“We have now determined the motivation behind this was a hate crime,” Michael Kaste of the FBI said during a press conference in Overland Park, Kan., on Monday. “The acts that this person committed were the result of beliefs that he had, and he was trying to hurt somebody based on their ethnicity, religion.”

Frazier Glenn Cross, 73, already facing charges of premeditated murder, was scheduled for an initial court appearance on Monday afternoon. He was arrested Sunday after a shooting spree that killed a 14-year-old boy and his grandfather outside a popular Jewish community center and a third victim outside a nearby Jewish retirement home.

Both facilities are in Overland Park, an upscale suburb in the Kansas City metropolitan area.

Kaste added that the FBI will work “aggressively” with law enforcement partners in a dual investigation into the crimes.

Dual investigations into this type of crime are not uncommon, Barry Grisson, U.S. attorney for the district of Kansas, said at the press conference. The Oklahoma City bombers who attacked the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in April, 1995 were prosecuted in state and federal court.

Kaste said the Overland Park police did “outstanding” work in apprehending Cross within 20 minutes from the first of 28 911 calls.

Cross allegedly opened fire at Overland Park’s Jewish Community Center and Village Shalom, a Jewish retirement center, before he was spotted by two patrol officers parked in his car. He was armed and had a number of weapons in the car when the police told him to surrender, and he did, according to Overland Park Police Chief John Douglas.

Cross had no known connections to the community, Douglas said. The Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups, said Cross was once the grand dragon of the Carolina Knights of the Ku Klux Klan.

Though the shootings took place at Jewish institutions, none of the three victims were Jewish. Two belonged to the United Methodist Church of the Resurrection in Leawood, Kan., and the third to St. Peter’s Catholic Church in Kansas City, Mo.

The first two victims were previously identified as Dr. William Lewis Corporon, 69, of Overland Park and his grandson Reat Corporon, 14. The third victim was identified at the Monday press conference as Theresa “Terri” Rose Hastings Lamano, who was visiting her mother at the retirement home at the time of the shooting.

Although the victims were Christian, the shootings will be investigated as hate crimes because a criterion is that a person needs only to believe that he or she was targeting a certain ethnicity or religion. Authorities said Cross likely thought his targets were Jewish, on the basis of the locations he chose.

He also made statements after his arrest that led authorities to believe bias was behind the shootings. Those statements are part of an ongoing investigation and cannot be made public, Kaste said.

Cross, 73, was arrested before, in 1987, authorities confirmed at the press conference. The New York Daily News reported that Cross was the subject of a nationwide manhunt in 1987 after violating the terms of his bond while appealing a North Carolina conviction for operating a paramilitary group.

Al Jazeera