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Kansas Gunman ‘Wanted to Make Damned Sure I Killed Some Jews’

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F. Glenn Miller Jr, who killed 3 people in a shooting spree at Jewish institutions in April, says he felt ‘exhilarated’ after the attack.

The white supremacist who murdered three people during a killing spree at Kansas Jewish Community Center and nearby Village Shalom care center on April 13 gave his first interview last Saturday, Nov 15.

F. Glenn Miller Jr told of his “exhilaration” while carrying out the bloody rampage, but also his surprise and regret at not having managed to kill any Jews.

73-year-old Miller, who also goes by the name Frazier Glenn Cross Jr., said he had decided to stage the attack after falling ill with emphysema and becoming convinced that he would die anyway.

“I was convinced I was dying then,” he told The Kansas City Star, recalling the moment he was admitted to a hospital with breathing difficulties in March. “I wanted to make damned sure I killed some Jews or attacked the Jews before I died.”

Speaking to The Star from the New Century Adult Detention Center, Miller said he was both proud of his actions and confident they had had the desired effect.

“Because of what I did, Jews feel less secure,” he said. “Every Jew in the world knows my name now and what I did.”

He insisted that although he was surprised to discover that none of his victims were Jews (“I was convinced there would be all Jews or mostly Jews”), for the most part he still stood by his actions.

“White people who are accomplices of the Jews, who attend their meetings and contribute to their fundraising efforts and who empower the Jews, they are my enemy too. A lot of white people who associate with Jews, go to Jewish events and support them know that they’re not safe either, thanks to me.”

But he said he did regret shooting 14-year-old Reat Underwood, who was murdered along with his grandfather, 69-year-old William Corporon.

Miller said the boy had “looked 20,” and that he would not have killed him if he knew he was a “young white boy.”

Their families – as well as the family of his third victim, 53-year-old Terri LaManno – declined to comment on the story.

He recounted with chilling clarity how he had visited the Jewish Community Center and Village Shalom for several days before the attack to carry out reconnaissance. At one point he even drove up to the JCC, unarmed, to make sure police were not following his movements.

“I drove all the way from my home in Missouri, back and forth, back and forth – I reconnoitered the damned place.”

“I parked right in front of it and drove around,” he said of his visit to the JCC six days before the shooting. “If the feds had been monitoring me, they’d have stopped me right then because they were afraid I was going to kill somebody” given that he was well-known to authorities.

Miller said he chose April 13 as the date for the attack because he had seen flyers publicizing an “American Idol”-style talent competition, “and according to the flier that I read, it says young Jews from all over will beparticipating.”

But on the day of the attack itself he nearly aborted his plans. After visiting the site three times he decided there weren’t enough potential victims to fulfill his “quota” of “maybe six or eight” people.

However, soon after turning around he changed his mind.

“I pulled over and I thought, ‘Here I am going home. I might die, and I will have not fulfilled my mission.’ My conscience would not allow me to do that.”

Armed with a pistol, two shotguns and a .30-caliber carbine rifle, he returned to the JCC.

“I seen the two guys getting out of a vehicle… Right above then, there were two young guys walking towards their vehicle and towards my direction.

“I just parked right in the middle of the drive there, and I got out where the guys in the vehicle were. I was probably no more than eight feet from that doctor. I got out and got in my trunk and started shooting… He showed no fear at all.

“The other guy speeded up. I shot at him but missed him.”

“I thought it was a strong possibility I’d be killed, so I wanted to kill as many as I possibly could before I got killed myself,” he explained, since he “was thoroughly convinced the place was going to be loaded with guards. Armed guards.”

Miller recounted his sense of “exhilaration” after successfully carrying out the murders.

“I have never felt such exhilaration… Finally, I’d done something.”

Surprised that no one was following him, he went on to Village Shalom, and gunned down LaManno in the parking lot.

“After I shot her, another woman came right behind the woman’s vehicle that I’d just shot. Right behind it, 15 feet from me,” he recalled.

“I had the shotgun pointed at her head from about 12 feet. I said, ‘Are you a Jew?’ She said, ‘What?’ By the second time, she knew why I was asking. She screamed, ‘No.’ So I let her live.”

Still convinced he would be killed, Miller “drove just a few blocks because I figured there were guards there who were going to shoot me in a second.”

He claimed he called 911 a total of 10 times to hand himself in but “there was no answer.”

He was eventually arrested  in the parking lot of a local elementary school, and could now face the death penalty for his actions.

But Mark Levin, founding rabbi of Congregation Beth Torah in Overland Park, denied Miller’s actions had left the Jewish community feeling scared and vulnerable.

On the contrary, “the fact that he brought tragedy to a number of lives brought our community together,” he insisted.

“In my experience, never has the general community reacted to any minority group the way the Jewish community was the recipient of overwhelming affection and understanding.

“When the community had the memorial, everyone came, across the board. What happened here, and I hope it’s a harbinger of things to come, is that the bullets in an unlikely place – suburbia – made everyone aware that we’re all vulnerable to hateful violence regardless of ethnicity, regardless of religious affiliation.”

Miller, on the other hand “lived his life as a failure and will die a failure.”

(INN)

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