The assailant, shot dead by police at the scene on Sunday, was
identified as Wade Michael Page. He served as a soldier in the Army from 1992
to 1998, said police chief John Edwards in the Milwaukee suburb of Oak Creek
where the 400-member temple is located.
Survivors described women and
children hiding in the pantry of the temple's community kitchen as the gunman
stormed through the building. "Everyone was falling on top of one
another," said Parminder Toor, 54, speaking in Punjabi as her daughter-in-law,
Jaskiran Kaur, translated.
"It was dark and we were
all crammed in." One of the women who made it into the pantry had been
shot in the hand, and there was "blood everywhere," said Toor.
Federal authorities said they
were treating the attack as a possible act of domestic terrorism.
According to the Southern
Poverty Law Center, which tracks hate groups, Page was a member of two racist
bands named End Apathy and Definite Hate, "a band whose album 'Violent
Victory' featured a gruesome drawing of a disembodied white arm punching a
black man in the face."
A MySpace page for a band that
appears to be one of those identified by the SPLC, End Apathy, includes songs
with titles such as "Self Destruct," "Submission" and
"Insignificant," as well as pictures of three heavily tattooed band
members.
"The music is a sad
commentary on our sick society and the problems that prevent true
progress," the band's profile says.
Band T-shirts advertized on
the page include one with the Roman numeral 14 -- a number the SPLC said was a
reference to the 14-word white supremacist slogan "We must secure the
existence of our people and a future for white children."
A YouTube video posted in 2009
of a song by Definite Hate, which appears to have been another Page band, shows
a scroll of the lyrics that includes: "Wake Up, White man, For Your Race,
And your land," and "Wake Up People Or Your Gonna Die!"
The SPLC pointed to a 2010
interview with white supremacist website Label 56 in which Page said he had
played in various bands since 2000, when he left his native Colorado on a
motorcycle.
Two years earlier, in 1998,
Page had been discharged from the Army for "patterns of misconduct,"
according to military sources.
Page had served in the
military for six years but was never posted overseas. He was a psychological
operations specialist and missile repairman who was last stationed at Fort
Bragg, North Carolina, the sources said.
In June 1998 he was
disciplined for being drunk on duty and had his rank reduced to specialist from
sergeant. He was not eligible to re-enlist.
In recent months, Page moved
to a suburb of Milwaukee called Cudahy. Peter Hoyt, who lives nearby, said he
would often see Page sitting on his porch or walking the neighborhood.
Page talked about an
ex-girlfriend who had broken up with him or, sometimes, the Green Bay Packers.
"He was friendly with me," Hoyt said. "When I found out it was
him, I was astounded."
David Brown, a 62-year-old
veteran who wears a Navy hat, recalled only perfunctory greetings with Page,
who lived in an apartment below him in South Milwaukee with a woman and her
five-year-old son before he moved to Cudahy.
He said Page was a delivery
driver and drove a plain white van. He also saw him on several occasions with a
guitar case.
"He was very inside
himself. He didn't talk much," said Brown. "I would say 'Hi' to him
and all I would get would be a 'Hi' back. I tolerated him and he tolerated
me."
LONE GUNMAN
FBI special agent Teresa
Carlson said authorities were interviewing Page's family and associates
searching for a motive behind the shooting that killed six people and seriously
wounded three, including a police officer, at the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin.
A fourth person was wounded
less seriously.
The dead were five men and one
woman, aged between 39 and 84. Members of the Sikh community said the president
of the congregation and a priest were among the victims.
American Sikhs around the
country added security to temples, with some saying they have been singled out
for harassment since the September 11, 2001, attacks because they are mistaken
as Muslims due to their colorful turbans and beards. [ID:nL2E8J6783]
Describing how the events
unfolded, Chief Edwards told reporters the first officer on the scene found a
victim in the temple parking lot and went to render assistance. The officer was
then shot eight or nine times at very close range with a handgun, Edwards said.
The gunman then fired on a
police car, ignoring officers' commands to drop his weapon, and was shot and
killed by police.
The wounded officer was
identified as Brian Murphy, 51, a 21-year veteran of the force. Even though he
had been hit, Murphy had waved away other officers coming to his aid, urging
them to go into the temple to help others, Edwards said.
Edwards said they were
confident Page was a "lone gunman. The FBI had said it was searching for a
person of interest in the case, but a law enforcement official said the person
had been located and cleared.
GUN BOUGHT LEGALLY
Officials said the weapon Page
used was a 9mm handgun that had been legally purchased. Page emptied several
magazines and several more unused magazines were found on the scene.
Wisconsin has some of the most
permissive gun laws in the country. It passed a law in 2011 allowing citizens
to carry a concealed weapon.
President Barack Obama said
Americans need to do more "soul searching" to find ways to reduce
violence.
"All of us recognize that
these kinds of terrible, tragic events are happening with too much
regularity," Obama said at a White House bill-signing ceremony when asked
whether further gun control measures were needed.
The shooting came just over
two weeks after a gunman killed 12 people at a theater in Aurora, Colorado,
where they were watching a screening of the new Batman movie.
There are 500,000 or more
Sikhs in the United States. The Sikh faith is the fifth-largest in the world,
with more than 30 million followers. It includes belief in one God and that
life's goal is to lead an exemplary existence.
Sikh leaders say the number of
incidents of violence against their community in the United States is growing.
At a news conference on
Monday, Amardeep Kaleka said his father, Satwant Singh Kaleka, the temple
president who was killed, represented the American Dream.
"He came over with $100
in his pocket," the son said. "He worked his behind off, 18 hours a
day in some of the worst neighborhoods ... He became a very successful
businessman."
Amardeep Singh, program
director of the Sikh Coalition, said Sikhs had become "collateral
damage" in a 24-hour news machine that uses dark-skinned, bearded,
turbaned men as visual shorthand for terrorists.
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