The suspect in the tragic shootings at a Sikh Temple in Wisconsin, Wade Michael page, is said to have ties to white supremacist groups.

Here's the breakdown on that story:

 

Witnesses say 40-year-old Wade Michael Page walked into the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin near Milwaukee on Sunday morning and opened fire, murdering six people and critically wounding three more, including a police officer. Initially, it was thought that more than one gunman was involved but later eye witness accounts ruled out the multiple shooter story.

Page , an Army veteran, was a repairman for the Hawk missile system before becoming a psychological operations specialist. He was discharged in 1998.

According to Mark Potok, of the Southern Poverty Law Center,  Page was a “frustrated neo-Nazi” who had spent much of the time since his discharge from the Army as part of the white-power music scene, playing in bands with names like Definite Hate and End Apathy whose songs have lyrics that talk about carrying out genocide against Jews and other minorities.

But since Potok added there’s no research showing that white supremacists hate Sikhs, Sunday’s attack was almost certainly the result of Page mistaking his victims for Muslims or Arabs.

Although there are about a half-million Sikhs in the US, the majority of the 500-year-old religion’s 27 million followers live in India. But since 9/11, Sikhs have inadvertently become targets of anti-Muslim bias, with the New York-based Sikh Coalition reporting more than 700 hate crimes and fielding thousands of complaints about workplace discrimination and racial profiling.

 

 

 

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