Wade Michael Page identified as Sikh temple shooting gunman

GlobalPost

Authorities have identified the gunman at a shooting that killed six people at a Sikh temple in suburban Wisconsin as Wade Michael Page.

According to CNN, the gunman, who was shot dead by police, was a 40-year-old Army veteran who had served at Fort Bragg Army Installation in North Carolina, Fox News reported.

Page joined the military in 1992, worked as a repairman for the Hawk missile system, and later became an Army psychological operations specialist, according to Boston.com. He was later discharged for a "pattern of misconduct," according to ABC News

According to the New York Post, Page was reportedly a skinhead with a 9/11 tattoo. Police have been searching Page's home, a duplex in Cudahy, Wisconsin. Page had only lived in the apartment for about a week, and had just broken up with his girlfriend, the mother of his landlord told Greendale Patch.

Police have not identified a motive, but have labeled his shooting rampage as an act of domestic terrorism. Sources told CBS News that authorities were investigating the shooting as a possible hate crime.

"It's sad, I don't know how to describe it," one of the temple's committee members, Ven Boba Ri, told the Milwaukee-Wisconsin Journal Sentinel. "It's pretty much a hate crime. It's not an insider."

The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a nonprofit civil rights organization based in Montgomery, Alabama, had been aware of Page as early as 2000, when they discovered he had attempted to buy goods from the National Alliance, a neo-Nazi organization the SPLC says was then "America's most important hate group."

Mark Potok, a SPLC senior fellow, said Page was involved with white-power music for over a decade. He played in bands such as Definite Hate, End Apathy, Youngland, Celtic Warrior, Radikahl, Max Resist, Intimidation One, Aggressive Force and Blue Eyed Devils.

In 2010 Page gave an interview Label 56, a white supremacist website. Page said, according to the SPLC, “The inspiration was based on frustration that we have the potential to accomplish so much more as individuals and a society in whole.” 

That interview, available online earlier today, has been taken down by Label 56. 

It's important to note that while the Wisconsin shooting has not yet been deemed a hate crime, violence against Sikhs is not uncommon in America. According to sikhcoalition.org, there have been a number of violent incidents against Sikhs in recent years. 

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