The Southern Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups, said it reached Miller’s wife, Marge, by phone and that she said authorities had been to their home and told her that her husband had been arrested in Sunday’s attacks. Calls by The Associated Press to a number listed as Miller’s on his website were met by a busy signal or rang unanswered.
According to the law center, Miller has been involved in the white supremacist movement for most of his life. He founded the Carolina Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and was its “grand dragon” in the 1980s. The Army veteran and retired truck driver later founded another white supremacist group, the White Patriot Party, the center said.
Miller was the subject of a nationwide manhunt in 1987 for violating the terms of his bond while appealing a North Carolina conviction for operating a paramilitary camp. The search ended after federal agents found Miller and three other men in an Ozark mobile home, which was filled with hand grenades, automatic weapons and thousands of rounds of ammunition. Miller tried running for U.S. House in 2006 and the U.S. Senate in 2010, espousing a white power platform each time.
SITE, a U.S.-based terror monitoring group, said Monday that Miller is a prominent member of the Vanguard News Network and has posted thousands of messages — including frequent calls for genocide against Jews — on the neo-Nazi forum’s website. His most recent post was Saturday.
The attacks rattled Overland Park, a suburb of about 180,000 residents south of Kansas City.
President Barack Obama released a statement expressing his grief over the attack, and Kansas Gov. Sam Brownback vowed to bring those responsible to justice.
“My heart and prayers are with all those who were affected by today’s events,” Brownback said in a statement. “We will pursue justice aggressively for these victims and criminal charges against the perpetrator or perpetrators to the full extent of the law.”