Indiana Shooting Victim Mourned
BLOOMINGTON, Ind. — U.S. Atty. Gen. Janet Reno and about 2,000 family, friends and community members gathered Tuesday to pay tribute to a Korean college student who was gunned down during a white supremacist’s shooting outburst over the Fourth of July weekend.
Won-Joon Yoon, 26, was one of two people slain in the shootings. Authorities believe the Indiana University undergraduate was killed July 4 by Benjamin Smith, a former student who committed suicide later that day.
Smith, 21, was a former member of the World Church of the Creator, a white supremacist group based in East Peoria, Ill. Authorities said he also killed a former basketball coach outside Chicago and wounded nine other people--all of them black, Jewish or Asian.
“Haters are cowards,†Reno said. “When confronted, they usually back down. And if they don’t back down, you must continue to confront them.â€
Yoon, the only son among four siblings, came to Bloomington after earning a master’s degree in economics. His goal was to earn a doctorate and become a teacher.
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