Smirking Overland Park Killer Quizzed Victims Before Shooting Read more: http://forward.com/articles/196506/nazi-gunman-singled-out-jews-for-death-in-suburban/#ixzz2yo7P181r

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A smirking gunman who reportedly shouted Nazi slogans opened fire at a Jewish community center and an old-age home in a suburb of Kansas City, killing three people.

The gunman, said to be an older man, singled out Jewish victims for death, Rabbi Herbert Mandl, a chaplain with the Overland Park Police Department, told CNN.

“Asking someone if you are Jewish before shooting sounds very much like a hate crime,” Mandl said.

Three people were killed, the Associated Press reported, quoting authorities.

Police said two people were killed at the JCC of Greater Kansas City, a third person was shot at Village Shalom, an assisted living facility.

Mandl said one of the victims at the JCC was a teenage boy. The victim at the retirement home was an elderly woman who was shot as she walked out of Village Shalom, he said.

Multiple reports said police arrested a suspect nearby, who was overheard shooting ‘Heil Hitler’ as he was taken into custody.“I have been told he was yelling ‘Heil Hitler’ as he was being led away,” Mandl told CNN.

The gunfire the JCC came as hundreds of high school singers from across the Kansas City area gathered to audition for the KC SuperStar contest and actors were rehearsing for a production of “To Kill a Mockingbird.”

“There were tons of kids because this was about to start at 1 o’clock,” said Ruth Bigus, the publicist for KC SuperStar, told the Star.

One of the victims was killed in the JCC parking lot, KCTV-TV reported. An eyewitness told Fox News that a man wielding a shotgun also opened fire in the JCC theater, where auditions for a teen theater group were underway.

“My son and I were walking into the Jewish Community Center this afternoon for an umpire clinic, around the west side, and all of the sudden we heard a gunshot, a pretty loud gunshot,” Mike Metcalf, an area resident, told Fox News. “I turned to look to my right and I can see a man standing outside a car with a shotgun, what to me looked like a shotgun, and there was somebody laying on the ground.”A JCC member, Mark Brodky, told a KSHB-TV photographer that the gunman shot the windows out of his car after pointing the gun at him.

The shooting came just hours before the start of Passover. “The timing is terrible,” Mandl said.

Police beefed up security at other Jewish sites and synagogues across the metro area.

Kansas City Mayor Sly James said he was outraged at the “senseless violence.”

A spokeswoman for Overland Park Regional Medical Center said the hospital was treating a 14-year-old male who suffered a gunshot wound and who was in critical condition.

Located in Kansas state, Overland Park is a sprawling suburb of Kansas City, Mo. It has a population of 178,000.  — Jewish Daily Forward