Shooting at US Jewish centers

Authorities arrested a man suspected of shooting dead three people on Sunday in the central US state of Kansas. The alleged assailant was apprehended outside of a local elementary school in Kansas City around 2:45 p.m. (2045 UTC). He reportedly yelled "Heil Hitler" as police escorted him away from the scene.

Overland Park Police Department Chief John Douglass identified the suspect as 73-year-old Frazier Glenn Cross, who also goes by the name of Frazier Glenn Miller. He was taken to Johnson County jail on a preliminary charge of first-degree murder.

The suspect has long-held white supremacy ties as a former leader within the Ku Klux Klan and has a history of anti-Semitism, said the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), which tracks hate groups.

"Today is a sad and very tragic day," Douglass told reporters adding, "There's a lot of innuendo and a lot of assertions going around. There is really very little hardcore information."

At roughly 1 p.m., a gunman opened fire at a local Jewish community center, killing at least two people. He then moved on to a nearby retirement home – Village Shalom – where he shot dead one person.

A 14-year-old boy remains in critical condition, according to Overland Park Medical Center spokesperson Christine Hamele.

The Kansas City Star newspaper reported that the community center had been filled with kids auditioning for a contest and rehearsing for a play at the time of the incident.

The shooting occurred in the southwestern Kansas City suburb of Overland Park, located southwest of the metropolitan area which stretches west from the border of the US state Missouri into its immediate neighbor Kansas.

kms,hc/dr (AP, AFP)