Archived News

By Barbara Bayer

Editor

Senseless. Tragic. Speechless.

These are just a few of the sentiments voiced by the greater Kansas City community Sunday immediately following three murders at the Jewish Community Campus and Village Shalom.

While the community has had a few days to digest the events of Sunday, April 13, members of the Jewish community are still rattled and unsettled by the tragedy.

By Tuesday the facts were beginning to become clearer to investigators. The alleged shooter shot two people, a grandfather and his grandson, at approximately 1 p.m. in the parking lot outside the Lewis and Shirley White Theatre entrance at the Jewish Community Campus. Overland Park Police Chief John Douglass reports that dispatchers received the first 911 call at 1:01 p.m. 

By David Small

Publisher

I was afraid. I was afraid I was going to lose my daughter Sunday.

I dropped my daughter off at the Jewish Community Campus 15 minutes before the 911 call was placed and Reat Underwood and Dr. Corporon were shot. I was afraid for the longest 60 seconds of my life because I thought I had sent my daughter inside the building to the shooter. An out-of-uniform policeman yelled at me to flee the building — “there’s been a shooting.” I ran into the building during those 60 seconds and it was only Jacob Schreiber — the Jewish Community Center’s executive director and CEO, who put his hand on my shoulder as I ran past him that signaled it was going to be OK (for us).

Victor Wishna

Guest Columnist

(JTA) — Every Friday at noon, my 2-year-old daughter and I rush through the doors of the Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City here to meet my father for lunch.

We are usually late, and the JCC’s Heritage Center, catering to active seniors (and their preschool-aged guests), is only our first stop. Vivien refuses to leave until she and Zayde have had a run of the entire building. At the White Theater, she chatters on about the time she saw “Hershel and the Hanukkah Goblins.” She reads books about Purim and Passover in the library, points out the most colorful paintings hung in the atrium and chases soccer balls around the gym until it is time to go.

Compiled by Chronicle Staff

Dignataries from across the country and all over the globe — Jewish and non-Jewish — sent messages to the Kansas City community Sunday night and Monday. 

President Obama issued this statement Sunday night following the shootings:

“This afternoon we heard reports of a horrific shooting in Overland Park, Kan. Michelle and I offer our thoughts and prayers to the families and friends who lost a loved one and everyone affected by this tragedy. I have asked my team to stay in close touch with our federal, state and local partners and provide the necessary resources to support the ongoing investigation. While we do not know all of the details surrounding today’s shooting, the initial reports are heartbreaking. I want to offer my condolences to all the families trying to make sense of this difficult situation and pledge the full support from the federal government as we heal and cope during this trying time,” JTA reports.

By The Chronicle Staff

The suspect in the April 13 shootings at the Jewish Community Campus and Village Shalom that killed three people has been identified by Overland Park police as Frazier Cross. Police report he also goes by Glenn Frazier Miller or simply Glenn Miller. The Anti-Defamation League, and the Institute for Research & Education on Human Rights (IREHR) have confirmed that Cross is a white supremacist from southwest Missouri with a career in hatred and white supremacy that has spanned more than three decades.

On Tuesday Johnson County prosecutors filed two types of murder charges against Cross. He is charged with one count of capital murder in the killings of Dr. William Lewis Corporon and Reat Griffin Underwood at the Campus. A conviction could result in the death penalty or life without parole. Prosecutors will determine at a later date whether they will seek the death penalty.

By Barbara Bayer

Editor

People stuck inside the Jewish Community Campus on lockdown Sunday afternoon under the auspices of the Jewish Community Center report that things overall went smoothly. Girls attending a BBYO meeting at the Campus were not so lucky.

The group of nine teenage girls, members of BBYO’s B’not Lev chapter, were having a board meeting in Conference Room B on the second floor. Unlike most days, there was no adult supervising them and no one in the building came to officially tell them it was in lockdown mode, according to Logan Cole, the chapter’s 16-year-old president. The girls learned of the lockdown from a parent who happened to be in lockdown in the Social Hall.

By Barbara Bayer

Editor

I am not afraid.

Yes I was concerned and worried on Sunday. I knew a lot of people inside the JCC. My husband had just been there hours earlier. 

I was anxious about my friends and relatives who live at Village Shalom.

This is my neighborhood, so I was nervous about what was going on when we could hear sirens. Lots and lots of sirens. My children attended the elementary school, just down the road from Village Shalom and my home, where the suspect was apprehended.

But I am not afraid.

I will not be anxious the next time I go to the Jewish Community Campus or the Jewish Community Center. I drive by Village Shalom EVERY SINGLE DAY. 

By Barbara Bayer

Editor

You could describe Ricardo Zepeda as a Renaissance man. The Hyman Brand Hebrew Academy senior, who will graduate May 12, is an athlete, musician, scholar and leader. 

He serves as chapter president of the local USY chapter, vice president of summer programs for Midwest NCSY, a Torah reader, a Bar Mitzvah tutor, plays soccer and basketball, a camp counselor and an oboist in the Kanas City Youth Symphony.

Todd Clauer, HBHA’s Upper School principal, describes Ricardo as a “passionate young man who relishes every opportunity to learn and grow, whether it be in the classroom, in sports, in a music hall, or as a highly engaged leader in Jewish youth organizations.”

By Kelli White

Contributing Writer

Acclaimed sports medicine physician and author Jordan D. Metzl, M.D., is coming back to his hometown for a presentation and book-signing for his newest bestseller, “The Exercise Cure.” 

Dr. Metzl attended Hyman Brand Hebrew Academy through eighth grade and is a graduate of The Barstow School. He is a nationally renowned sports medicine physician at Hospital for Special Surgery, America’s premier orthopedic hospital located in New York City. A regular on NBC’s “Today Show,” he lectures nationally and internationally on issues of health, injury prevention and fitness. He has written five books and has appeared in media outlets such as The New York Times and National Public Radio (NPR) discussing the topics of preventive health.

Eleven-year-old Bree Katz may not have known it when she was just a preschooler, but what started out as an afternoon of fun and family bonding has become something family and friends near and far enjoy, “Brianna’s Cooking Show.” 

The show stars Bree, a fifth-grader at Hyman Brand Hebrew Academy, and is produced by her older brother, 16-year-old Jacob, a sophomore at the Jewish day school. 

The first show was produced about seven years ago when Bree was only 4. Jacob wanted to play around with his new video camera and Bree was hungry. She wanted to make scrambled eggs. The rest, as they say, is history.

Looking back, Vicki Katz said early on the cooking show was a way for her two children to get her to cook something they wanted to eat.

“They always want me to cook and I want to get out of cooking sometimes,” Vicki said. “As time went on, whenever they wanted me to make something, they would decide to make a cooking show.”