Officials: Sikh temple shooter white supremacist

By By DINESH RAMDE and TODD RICHMOND – 10 minutes ago

OAK CREEK, Wis. (AP) — A 40-year-old Army veteran, identified by a civil
rights group as the one-time leader of a white supremacist band, was the
gunman who killed six people inside a Sikh temple in Wisconsin,
officials said Monday.

First Assistant U.S. Greg Haanstad in Milwaukee identified the shooter
as Wade Michael Page. Page joined the Army in 1992 and was discharged in
1998, according to a defense official who spoke to The Associated Press
on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to release
information yet about the suspect.

Officials and witnesses said the gunman walked into the Sikh Temple of
Wisconsin in suburban Milwaukee and opened fire as several dozen people
prepared for Sunday services. When the shooting finally ended, seven
people lay dead, including Page, who was shot to death by police. Three
others were critically wounded in what police called an act of domestic
terrorism.

Page was a "frustrated neo-Nazi" who led a racist white supremacist
band, the Southern Poverty Law Center said Monday. Page told a white
supremacist website in an interview in 2010 that he had been part of the
white-power music scene since 2000 when he left his native Colorado and
started the band, End Apathy, in 2005, the nonprofit civil rights
organization said.

He told the website his "inspiration was based on frustration that we
have the potential to accomplish so much more as individuals and a
society in whole," according to the SPLC. He did not mention violence in
the website interview.

Page joined the military in Milwaukee in 1992 and was a repairman for
the Hawk missile system before switching jobs to become one of the
Army's psychological operations specialists, according to the defense
official.



(And former military, too. Another surprise. Guy probably was a close
buddy of several posters on rec.boats, I'd bet. Meyer? BAR? JustSnot?
Bilious?)


--
I'm a liberal because the militant fundamentalist ignorant
science-denying religious xenophobic corporate oligarchy of modern
Republican conservatism just doesn't work for me or my country.