A White Supremacist Drive-By on the Way to Church: The Murder of Won-Joon Yoon
·IN·shootingadvisorymedium confidence
Confirmed Threat
At approximately 9:30 PM EST on Sunday, July 4, 1999, Indiana University graduate economics student Won-Joon Yoon, 26, was shot and killed outside the Korean United Methodist Church on East Third Street in Bloomington as he walked to evening services. The shooter was 21-year-old Benjamin Nathaniel Smith, a follower of the white-supremacist World Church of the Creator who was on the third day of a drive-by shooting rampage targeting Black, Jewish, and Asian people across Illinois and Indiana. Yoon was the second of two people Smith killed; nine others were wounded across the three-day spree. Smith took his own life later that night during a police pursuit in southern Illinois.
Alerts
3
Response
—
Killed
1
Injured
0
Institution
Indiana University Bloomington
Public R1 · IN
~36,000 students
Confirmed Timeline
Alert Sequence
3 messages in sequence
Some alert texts below are approximate reconstructions from news coverage, not confirmed verbatim transcripts. Reconstructed texts are shown in italic with a dashed border. Verified verbatim texts have a solid border and are marked accordingly.
INITIAL ALERTPhone
Approximate reconstruction·488 chars
[Bloomington Police were notified by 911 within minutes of the shooting at approximately 9:30 PM EST outside the Korean United Methodist Church on East Third Street. Indiana University Police were alerted by Bloomington Police shortly afterward. There was no IU campus-wide notification system in 1999. The shooting occurred off-campus on a city street; the first Indiana University communication of Yoon's death came from the Department of Economics by phone tree the following morning.]
This text has been reconstructed from news coverage and may not reflect the exact original wording.
The shooting occurred at approximately 9:30 PM EST on Sunday, July 4, 1999, outside the Korean United Methodist Church at 1810 East Third Street in Bloomington — adjacent to but technically off the IU campus
Indiana University in 1999 had no SMS, no email mass-alert, no campus PA system, and no Clery emergency-notification protocol; the Department of Economics learned of Yoon's death from his fellow graduate students by phone overnight
Bloomington Police initially did not connect the shooting to Smith's earlier shootings in Illinois and Skokie until Smith's vehicle description was matched against witness accounts the following morning
UPDATEPhone
Approximate reconstruction·454 chars
[Benjamin Nathaniel Smith was pursued by Salem, Illinois police on Interstate 57 after a citizen recognized his stolen blue Ford Taurus. Smith lost control of the vehicle, exited the highway, and shot himself once under the chin at approximately 11:30 PM EST on July 4, 1999. He was pronounced dead at Salem Township Hospital approximately 30 minutes later. Indiana University Police were notified that the shooter linked to Yoon's killing was deceased.]
This text has been reconstructed from news coverage and may not reflect the exact original wording.
Smith's three-day rampage from July 2-4, 1999 had killed two (Ricky Byrdsong on July 2 in Skokie, Illinois, and Won-Joon Yoon on July 4 in Bloomington) and wounded nine across Illinois and Indiana
Smith was 21 years old and a former student at Indiana University, where he had distributed white-supremacist World Church of the Creator literature on campus in 1998 — a fact that emerged during the post-shooting investigation
His suicide ended the multi-state pursuit but did not provide closure on the question of whether his rampage was directed by World Church of the Creator leader Matthew Hale, who had been denied a law license in Illinois on July 1, 1999
FOLLOW-UPEmail
Approximate reconstruction·509 chars
[Indiana University President Myles Brand issued a statement on July 5, 1999, confirming the death of graduate economics student Won-Joon Yoon and announcing that flags on the Bloomington campus would fly at half-staff. The Department of Economics held a memorial gathering at the Wylie Hall economics building. The statement was distributed by phone tree, fax to the Indiana Daily Student, and posted to the IU News Bureau wire service. There was no campus-wide email or SMS notification capability in 1999.]
This text has been reconstructed from news coverage and may not reflect the exact original wording.
Yoon was a second-year PhD student in economics from South Korea; he had been at Indiana University for less than two years at the time of his murder
Approximately 2,000 people attended his memorial service at the IU Musical Arts Center on July 12, 1999 — one of the largest public gatherings on campus that summer
IU established the Won-Joon Yoon Memorial Scholarship in economics, which continues to fund graduate students in economics today
Context
Background
The murder of Won-Joon Yoon outside the Korean United Methodist Church on East Third Street in Bloomington on July 4, 1999, is the only IU-affiliated killing in the 1999 Independence Day weekend shootings — a three-day drive-by spree in which 21-year-old white-supremacist Benjamin Nathaniel Smith targeted Black, Jewish, and Asian people across Illinois and Indiana, killing two and wounding nine. Smith was a follower of Matthew Hale's World Church of the Creator and had distributed the group's literature on the IU campus in 1998 while briefly enrolled at IU. His rampage began on July 2 in Chicago's West Rogers Park neighborhood, where he wounded six Orthodox Jews, and continued in Skokie, Illinois, where he killed former Northwestern University men's basketball coach Ricky Byrdsong. On July 3 he wounded an Asian-American couple in Springfield, Illinois, and an African-American minister in Decatur. On July 4, having driven across central Illinois into Indiana, he arrived in Bloomington and parked near the Korean United Methodist Church on East Third Street. At approximately 9:30 PM EST, he opened fire on Won-Joon Yoon, a 26-year-old second-year economics PhD student at Indiana University, as Yoon walked to evening services. Yoon was killed instantly. Smith fled west, was pursued by Salem, Illinois police, and shot himself in his stolen Ford Taurus at approximately 11:30 PM EST on July 4. The case is included in this archive because, although the shooting occurred just off-campus, it killed an active IU graduate student in a hate crime targeting Asian-Americans and is one of the most widely studied white-supremacist rampage cases in U.S. history. It also illustrates the absence of any campus-wide alert mechanism at IU in 1999 — a major Big Ten flagship — for a Sunday-night hate killing of one of its own graduate students.
Analysis
Key Findings
01Won-Joon Yoon, 26, was the only Indiana University graduate student killed in Benjamin Smith's three-day white-supremacist rampage of July 2-4, 1999
02The murder occurred at approximately 9:30 PM EST on July 4, 1999 outside the Korean United Methodist Church on East Third Street in Bloomington — adjacent to the IU campus but technically off-campus
03Indiana University in 1999 had no SMS, no email mass-alert, no campus PA system, and no Clery emergency-notification protocol; the Department of Economics learned of Yoon's death by phone tree overnight
04Smith had distributed World Church of the Creator white-supremacist literature on the IU campus in 1998 while briefly enrolled at IU — a fact that emerged during the post-rampage investigation
05Approximately 2,000 people attended Yoon's memorial at the IU Musical Arts Center on July 12, 1999, and the Won-Joon Yoon Memorial Scholarship was endowed in his name
Outcome
Won-Joon Yoon, 26, a Korean national in the second year of his economics PhD at Indiana University, was killed by a single gunshot fired from Smith's light blue Ford Taurus as Yoon walked to the Korean United Methodist Church for Sunday evening services. He was the ninth victim of Smith's three-day rampage and the second killed (the first was Ricky Byrdsong, the former Northwestern University men's basketball coach, killed in Skokie, Illinois on July 2). Smith fled west across central Indiana into Illinois, was pursued by Salem, Illinois police, lost control of his stolen Ford Taurus, and shot himself below the chin at approximately 11:30 PM EST on July 4, 1999. He was pronounced dead at Salem Hospital. Approximately 2,000 people attended Yoon's memorial at the [Indiana University Musical Arts Center](https://newsinfo.iu.edu/news/page/normal/447.html) on July 12, 1999. IU established the Won-Joon Yoon Memorial Scholarship in his honor.