OAK CREEK, Wis. -- The gunman who killed six people inside a Sikh
temple in the U.S. and was killed in a police shootout was a 40-year-old
army veteran, officials said Monday, and a civil rights group
identified him as a "frustrated neo-Nazi" who led a white supremacist
band.
Police called Sunday's attack an act of domestic terrorism. The FBI
said there was no reason to think anyone else was involved in the
attack, and they were not aware of any past threat made against the
temple.
The shooter was Wade Michael Page, said First Assistant U.S. Attorney
Greg Haanstad in Milwaukee. Page was discharged from the army in 1998
and declared ineligible to re-enlist, according to a U.S. defense
official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not
authorized to release information about the suspect.
Officials and witnesses said the gunman walked into the Sikh Temple
of Wisconsin and opened fire as several dozen people prepared for Sunday
morning services. Six were killed, and three were critically wounded.
The federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said
the gunman used a legally purchased 9mm handgun and multiple magazines
of ammunition. Local authorities said they had had no contact with Page
before Sunday.
"We never thought this could happen to our community," said Devendar
Nagra, 48, whose sister escaped injury by hiding as the gunman fired in
the temple's kitchen. "We never did anything wrong to anyone."
The New York-based Sikh Coalition has reported more than 700
incidents in the U.S. since the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, which
advocates blame on anti-Islamic sentiment. Sikhs are not Muslims, but
their long beards and turbans often cause them to be mistaken for
Muslims, advocates say.
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 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 interview.
Page joined the military 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.
So-called "Psy-Ops" specialists are responsible for the analysis,
development and distribution of intelligence used for information and
psychological effect; they research and analyze methods of influencing
foreign populations.
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