Updated, 5:15 p.m. Wednesday: The accused Jewish Community Center shooter was scolded by a judge Wednesday when he tried to ask several witnesses if they were Jewish at a pre-trial hearing.
Johnson County District Judge Thomas Kelly Ryan warned Frazier Glenn Cross Jr. that his anti-Semitic outbursts could be grounds for a mistrial once the jury is seated.
Most witnesses did not have to answer when Cross, who is representing himself, demanded to know if they were Jewish because the district attorney objected on the grounds of relevance.
But one woman, Margaret Hunker, testified she had already answered the question while staring down Cross’ gun in the Village Shalom parking lot.
Hunker says moments after she watched Cross shoot and kill Terri LaManno, 53, he asked, “Are you a Jew?”
No, she told him, at which point Cross drove off.
In court Wednesday, Cross had just one question for Hunker: Did she answer truthfully?
Yes, she said.
"I'm glad I didn't shoot you," Cross replied.
"Me too," Hunker said. "Thank you."
Ryan did not rule Wednesday on Cross’ motions to suppress evidence and to suppress identity.
The court is in the process of sending out juror questionnaires to 1,000 Johnson County residents.
Cross is due back in court July 17, a month before his trial is to begin.
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Overland Park, Kansas, police officers who responded to a report of shots fired at the Jewish Community Center last spring told a Johnson County judge Wednesday it was the most chaotic scene they'd ever processed.
"It's your worst nightmare when something like this happens because you don't know how large it is," Sgt. Marty Ingram testified.
Ingram, a 37-year veteran with the Overland Park Police Department, was working as private security at the Jewish Community Center when the first shots were fired at the doors of the White Theater shortly after 1 p.m. on April 13, 2014.
Ingram took cover while he assessed the scene. Two people, Reat Underwood and William Corporon, had been killed in the parking lot.
But when Ingram tried to call 911, he couldn't get through to dispatch. He told Judge Thomas Kelly Ryan it was the only time he'd experienced the emergency number "locking up."
The state is building its case against Frazier Glenn Cross Jr., also called Frazier Glenn Miller Jr., a known anti-Semite accused in last year's deadly attack.
But after a lunchtime recess, Cross declared the many hours of exacting testimony a waste of the state's time.
"How much longer is he going to stand up there?" Cross interrupted, pointing to another officer who had taken the stand. "Gibberish."
Ryan, who is allowing Cross to defend himself, pointed out that the District Attorney's Office is responding to two motions his legal team filed in April, before they were demoted to standby counsel.
"These motions were made in an effort to determine which evidence is permitted at trial," Ryan said.
He then ordered the state to continue.
An annoyed Cross muttered insults at Chief Deputy District Attorney Christopher McMullin while he waited for dash camera video from a squad car to load.
At issue is whether Overland Park police were right to ask three witnesses to identify Cross after arresting him in an elementary school parking lot.
Two did. A third, Margaret Hunker, told officers while Cross was the same size as the man who gunned down Terri LaManno at Village Shalom, his beard looked different. During the preliminary hearing, Hunker pointed to Cross and identified him as the shooter. She chalked the discrepancy up to rain that started almost immediately after the shooting and may have altered Cross' appearance.
Also at the preliminary hearing, Cross' legal team had sharply criticized the "show up" line up used to identify Cross as against best practices. Clearly, they hoped to exclude such statements at trial in August.
Cross has been granted access to a typewriter to prepare legal briefs. He used it to distribute an anti-Semitic press release to a television news crew.
Ryan has repeatedly denied Cross' requests for Internet access.
