‘Armed presence’ beefs up Kansas City JCC security

An “armed presence” during most of the center’s operating hours is among the security upgrades at the JCC of Greater Kansas City in the wake of deadly shootings there.

Some of the security upgrades are already in place, and others will be phased in over the coming weeks, the Kansas City Star reported Saturday, citing an email from Jacob Schreiber, president and CEO of the Jewish community center in Overland Park, Kan.

A security director will be hired “as soon as possible,” according to the report, and a security assessment will be undertaken.

The moves follow the April 13 attacks at the JCC and at Village Shalom, a Jewish assisted-living facility a few blocks away, that killed three.

Frazier Glenn Miller, a white supremacist who also goes by the name Frazier Glenn Cross, is suspected of killing William Lewis Corporon, a retired physician, and his 14-year-old grandson, Reat Griffin Underwood, in the JCC parking lot and then shooting Terri LaManno, a mother of two, in the parking lot at Village Shalom, where she was visiting her mother. None of the victims were Jewish.