Kansas shootings suspect to face hate crime charges

A 73-year-old former Ku Klux Klan member accused of killing three people in suburban Kansas city shootings Sunday will face hate crime charges, US law enforcement officials said Monday.

The federal and local law enforcement have said the shooting at a Jewish community centre and a retirement home in Overland Park, a Kansas City suburb in the US state of Kansas, constituted a hate crime, Xinhua reported.

"We have unquestionably determined through the work of local and federal law enforcement agencies that this was a hate crime," Overland Park police chief John Douglass told a press conference Monday.

Douglass said the law enforcement officials made the determination following the suspect's statements to police after the shooting.

Frazier Glenn Cross, who was arrested following the shootings, is a known white supremacist and known affiliate of various hate groups. He will be charged with first-degree murder on the state and federal level and the prosecutors will also pursue hate-crime charges against him.

Attorney General Eric Holder said the Justice Department would provide all available support to determine if the "heinous acts" constituted a hate crime.

"As Americans, we will continue to stand united against this kind of terrible violence, which has no place in our society," US President Barack Obama said Monday in a statement on Passover, a major Jewish festival celebrating the deliverance of the Jewish people from slavery in Egypt.

Police have identified the victims as Reat Griffin Underwood, 14, and his grandfather, William Lewis Corporon, 69, and 53-year-old occupational therapist Terri LaManno.