A 73-year-old southwest Missouri man with a long history of anti-Semitism is suspected of killing two people outside Overland Park’s Jewish Community Center and then a third at a nearby Jewish assisted living facility.
After officers arrested Frazier Glenn Cross — an Aurora, Mo., man better known as F. Glenn Miller — Sunday afternoon, authorities said he went on a rant inside the patrol car. Though Overland Park Police Chief John Douglass wouldn’t say what Cross hollered, a television crew captured him on video while he was handcuffed in the back of the car.
“Heil Hitler,” Miller yelled out, and then he bobbed his head up and down.
Reat Griffin Underwood loved life. A freshman at Blue Valley High School, he participated in debate and theater and had already attained the rank of Eagle Scout.
On Sunday afternoon, he was with his grandfather outside the Jewish Community Center in Overland Park when the vehicle they were in was struck by gunfire. Reat’s grandfather, William Lewis Corporon, who had taken the teen there to audition for a contest, died at the scene. Reat, 14, died later at a hospital....
She said her dad took Reat to the community center to audition for the KC SuperStar competition because she was attending her younger son’s lacrosse game.
In 2010, he filed as a write-in candidate for the U.S. Senate from Missouri, then bought or tried to buy advertising time on several Missouri radio stations, including at least two in Kansas City. The ads bitterly denounced Jews, the federal government and African-Americans.
“We’ve sat back and allowed the Jews to take over our government, our banks and our media,” one commercial said.
I'm not sure how to feel about the fact that (at least) two of the three victims weren't Jewish. It seems abundantly obvious who this guy was trying to target, and some part of me wants to feel satisfied that he mostly failed. The rest of me tells that part that there's nothing to feel good about here and makes me feel bad for wanting to find some kind of upside.
I don't think it matters whether his victims were actually Jewish or not. When you ("you," eg the media) point out that they weren't, there's a lot of subtext there that can be read in various different ways, but none of them are good -- that the killer didn't even succeed at his goal (would it have been better or worse if he had?), that these Christians were just in the wrong place at the wrong time (as if that's worse than a Jewish person having been in the "right" place but at that very wrong time instead), etc. In the end, people were still murdered. It doesn't matter what race or religion or gender or whatever else they were, except to the extent that it speaks to the killer's motive. There's no satisfaction to be found in the fact that he wasn't even good at anti-Semitism. There is no silver lining.
earthling wrote:The shooter is from the Carolinas and was apparently founded a Carolina KKK clan.
I believe he lived in southern MO more recently. He made a run in 2010 for the U.S. Senate from MO as a write-in candidate, running awful racist ads on local radio stations.
phuqueue wrote:I don't think it matters whether his victims were actually Jewish or not.
I agree with you. However, I believe there is a federal law that turns his particular motive into a hate crime. I rather wish we could stick with the idea that murder is simply--or horribly--murder.
phuqueue wrote:I don't think it matters whether his victims were actually Jewish or not.
I agree with you. However, I believe there is a federal law that turns his particular motive into a hate crime. I rather wish we could stick with the idea that murder is simply--or horribly--murder.
And yes, there is no silver lining.
absolutely. I was simply thinking that as a guy with a set of morals (that I 100% disagree with), that when he went to commit murder under those morals that he managed to even fail himself.
I'm not sure what that makes him exactly, but he defined it quite well.
No hate crime charges by the state, because the state has no hate crime legislation. First degree capital murder, death penalty or life without parole are the sentencing options.
IraGlacialis wrote:
On another note, I noticed that a couple articles are saying "'Kansas City' shootings".
Tuesday NBC Nightly News said he was "in a courtroom near Kansas City, Kansas" or something similar. Which is technically correct, but I'm sure they meant to say "Kansas City, Missouri." The national media still get it wrong so much of the time.
Kansas hasn't executed anyone since 1965 - two months after they hung the "In Cold Blood" killers, they hung two others. Nothing since.
I don't know if others are scheduled to go or not. You'd assume this guy would get it. However, given his age and what passes for due process in this country, it's hard to imagine they gas him before father time catches up.
IraGlacialis wrote:
On another note, I noticed that a couple articles are saying "'Kansas City' shootings".
Tuesday NBC Nightly News said he was "in a courtroom near Kansas City, Kansas" or something similar. Which is technically correct, but I'm sure they meant to say "Kansas City, Missouri." The national media still get it wrong so much of the time.
Well, he was in Kansas. They probably should have just said "Kansas City," full stop.
WSPanic wrote:Kansas hasn't executed anyone since 1965 - two months after they hung the "In Cold Blood" killers, they hung two others. Nothing since.
I don't know if others are scheduled to go or not. You'd assume this guy would get it. However, given his age and what passes for due process in this country, it's hard to imagine they gas him before father time catches up.
There are ten on death row, including John Robinson.
"He was always nice and friendly and respectful of elder people, you know, he respected his elders greatly. As long as they were the same color as him," Clevenger said while laughing, according to television station KSPR. "Very fair and honest and never had a bit of problems out of him."
Clevenger said he sympathized with some of Miller's views, but didn't like to broadcast that.
"Kind of agreed with him on some things but, I don't like to express that too much," Clevenger, the owner of a local repair shop, said....
However, KSPR unearthed a letter to the editor that the mayor sent nearly a decade ago to a newspaper in Aurora, Mo. in which he expressed admiration for Miller's mission.
"I am a friend of Frazier Miller helping to spread his warnings," Clevenger wrote, according to KSPR. "The Jew-run medical industry has succeeded in destroying the United State's workforce."
Clevenger also reportedly wrote that the "Jew-run government backed banking industry turned the U.S into the world's largest debtor nation."
IraGlacialis wrote:
On another note, I noticed that a couple articles are saying "'Kansas City' shootings".
Tuesday NBC Nightly News said he was "in a courtroom near Kansas City, Kansas" or something similar. Which is technically correct, but I'm sure they meant to say "Kansas City, Missouri." The national media still get it wrong so much of the time.
A bit off topic but I just read on Yahoo that Miley Cyrus had to cancel her gig at the "Spring" Center because she is hospitalized in Kansas City Kansas. I think the Kansas/Missouri thing has taken on a new manifestation with the quality of journalism across the country in rapid decline as the internet makes news (not very well fact checked news) immediately available.
Last edited by Highlander on Fri Apr 18, 2014 11:38 pm, edited 1 time in total.
IraGlacialis wrote:
On another note, I noticed that a couple articles are saying "'Kansas City' shootings".
Tuesday NBC Nightly News said he was "in a courtroom near Kansas City, Kansas" or something similar. Which is technically correct, but I'm sure they meant to say "Kansas City, Missouri." The national media still get it wrong so much of the time.
A bit off topic but I just read on Yahoo that Miley Cyrus had to cancel her gig at the "Spring" Center because she is hospitalized in Kansas City Kansas. I think the Kansas/Missouri thing has taken on a new manifestation with the quality of journalism across the country in rapid decline as the internet makes news (not very well fact checked news) immediately available.