Rep. Kevin Yoder of Kansas said the shooting deaths of three people at Jewish sites Sunday in the Kansas City suburbs appeared to be “driven by hate” and “struck all of us personally.”
He said the pastor of his Methodist church informed the congregation that two of the victims — a grandfather and his 14-year-old grandson — had been members of the church.
“I think we’re all very stunned that this could happen right here in our community,” Mr. Yoder, a Republican, said on CNN’s “New Day,” noting the incident occurred about 12 blocks from his house. “I’m sure, as we all do, we watch these news stories about these horrific acts across the country and yesterday’s act … hit very close to home, obviously. And so I think we’ve just got a very stunned community right now.”
Police arrested and charged Frazier Glenn Cross, a 73-year-old Missouri man with a long track record of anti-Semitism, with murder for the deaths of the pair and another woman a few blocks away at a Jewish retirement community.
Video footage showed him screaming, “Heil Hitler,” from the back of a police car.
The killings arrived on the cusp of Passover, and Mr. Yoder noted the suspect had a long history of racist and anti-Semitic views.
“We don’t know enough about what his motives are but, boy, his history tells us a lot about what his motives probably were,” he said.
• Tom Howell Jr. can be reached at thowell@washingtontimes.com.
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