Three people have been killed in shootings at a Jewish community centre and home for the elderly near Kansas City in the US.

According to local media reports, the prime suspect is Frazier Glenn Cross Jr, a 73-year-old former leader Ku Klux Klan leader who has a long history of antisemitism and racism.

In the first attack at the community centre in the Overland Park suburb of Kansas City, 14-year-old Reat Griffin Underwood and his grandfather, William Lewis Corporon, were killed. Both were members of a local Methodist congregation.

In the second shooting, at a car park outside the Village Shalom home, a few minutes from the community centre, an unidentified woman was killed.

At a press conference about three hours after the shooting, local police chief John Douglass confirmed that a white man in his 70s with a beard had been taken into custody.

He said the authorities were still looking into whether the shootings were a hate crime.

“It's too early in the investigation to try to label it,” said Mr Douglass. “We know it's a vicious act of violence. Obviously, at two Jewish facilities, one might make that assumption, but we're going to have to know more about it.”

The first shooting occurred just after 1pm on Sunday in the car park behind the community centre. The building has a theatre where a number of local teenagers were auditioning for a talent show.