Tears and Calls for Peace at Overland Park Service
Image by getty images
The scene of what authorities say was a hate crime just days ago became the setting for tears, prayers and calls for peace as religious leaders gathered at a Kansas Jewish community center for a memorial service in honor of three people shot dead on Sunday.
Heavy security surrounded the Jewish Community Center on Thursday in suburban Overland Park, Kansas, where two of the victims were gunned down, and several hundred people crowded into the center’s auditorium for the interfaith service.
“We all needed to come together to… bring into this tragedy God, heaven, peace and love,” Jacob Schreiber, president and chief executive of the Jewish Community Center, told the gathering.
Frazier Glenn Cross, 73, also known as avowed white supremacist Glenn Miller, is being held on $10 million bond on a charge of capital murder and premeditated first-degree murder for the killings on the eve of the Jewish Passover holiday.
Federal prosecutors have said they also plan to file federal hate crime charges against Cross, known by law enforcement as a senior member of the white supremacy movement and someone who had made repeated threats against Jewish people.
Cross is accused of murdering Reat Underwood, 14, and his grandfather, 69-year-old William Corporon, both shot in the head in the parking lot outside the Jewish Community Center. Underwood was about to audition for a singing competition held annually as a community fundraiser.
A third victim, 53-year-old Terri LaManno, an occupational therapist, was shot dead minutes later at a Jewish retirement home about a mile away where she was visiting her mother.
Though officials said Cross appeared to be targeting Jews, Underwood and Corporon were Methodists, and LaManno was Catholic.
Speaking at the memorial, U.S. Attorney Eric Holder called the killings “unspeakable acts of violence.
“In this celebratory Holy Week … a pall has been cast over our great nation,” Holder said, referring to the week in Christianity that culminates in Easter Sunday.
“Every alleged hate crime, no matter who the intended target, is an affront to who we are. These acts cannot be ignored. We are united in our condemnation of this heinous attack and our commitment to seeing that justice is served.”
The ‘service of unity and hope,’ featured comments by Jewish and Christian leaders. Images of the victims, suspended on video screens in the large theater, smiled down on the crowd.
“This speaks to the strength of the Kansas City community,” said Eric Morgenstern, former board member of the Jewish Community Center who was volunteering at the event Thursday. “We know that hope and love will overcome bigotry and racism.”
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
