At Sikh temple, children’s warning saved others
That's odd because my printed paper carried this:
"Wade Michael Page: Excessive drinking cost Sikh temple shooter his military career, civilian job" by ,
OAK CREEK, Wis. —Wade Michael Page, the gunman in Sunday’s Sikh temple shooting, had a history of problems with alcohol, which led to him losing his military career and, more recently, a job as a trucker.
Page, 40, was discharged from the Army in 1998 because he had been found drunk during military exercises, according to law enforcement authorities. He was convicted of driving under the influence a year later in Colorado. And a trucking company confirmed Tuesday morning that it fired Page two years ago after he was pulled over in North Carolina for driving while impaired.
Christopher Robillard, of Oregon, who described Page as “my closest friend” in the service more than a decade ago, said Page was pushed out of the military for showing up to formation drunk.
In an interview with CNN, he described Page as “a very kind, very smart individual — loved his friends. One of those guys with a soft spot.” But even then, Robillard said, Page “was involved with white supremacy.”
“He would talk about the racial holy war, like he wanted it to come,” Robillard said. “But to me, he didn’t seem like the type of person to go out and hurt people.”
Later Monday, Robillard told CNN’s “Piers Morgan Tonight” that Page likely sought attention to his beliefs “because he was always the loner type of person. Even in a group of people, he would be off alone.”
Readers, we have seen this movie before.
In 2000, Page sold everything he owned aside from his motorcycle and journeyed from his native Colorado, eventually settling in rural North Carolina. He joined prominent “white power” rock bands....
Investigators are working to determine Page’s motive for the shooting....
Apart from his apparent struggles with alcohol and his personal finances, Page was a musician, who had become deeply embedded in the white-supremacist music scene and was well known to anti-hate watchdog groups. One such group, Southern Poverty Law Center, said it had been tracking him for more than a decade.... Embedded i s an interesting word because this guy worked in Army psy-ops before he was "discharged."
The feeling here is this was a false flag operation carried out by a trained team of killers. Page was either sacrificed as a distraction for escape by the others or killed outright to be the designated patsy.
There is no evidence that Page harbored specific resentment toward Sikhs. Watchdog groups and Sikhs say it is likely that Page confused the religion with Islam....
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Related: Sikh Shooting in Wisconsin
Yeah, people saw more than one killer -- again!
Speaking of which....
Investigators seek clues on gunman’s last weeks before temple murder
But my print copy carried....
"FBI: Sikh temple gunman shot himself; still no motive" by TODD RICHMOND and DINESH RAMDE, Associated Press, August 8, 2012
MILWAUKEE (AP) — There's no trial to prepare, no jury to persuade, no judge to hand down a sentence.
Yes, how CONVENIENT!
Wade Michael Page is dead, having shot himself in the head after killing six people at a Sikh temple outside Milwaukee.
It's a broken record, isn't it?
Although detectives have interviewed more than 100 people, combed through Page's email and recovered hundreds of pieces of evidence from his residences to the temple, their findings might never be presented in court.
They also might never learn what drove him to attack total strangers in a holy place.
"We may never know exactly why he chose that facility, that entity, at that time," said Steven Conley, assistant agent in charge of national security for the FBI in Milwaukee. "We're trying to piece together, and eventually we will piece together as much as we can."
"We will have a good idea of the motive by the time this investigation is done," he added. "But again, why that building, that temple, at that time, that may have died with Page."
What's really strange is the guy was part of an Army mind-manipulation program.
At the moment, detectives are sifting through the gunman's life, assembling the biography of a man who apparently had few relatives, a spotty work history and a thin criminal record.
Translation: they are putting out a cover story!
The FBI's agent in charge in Milwaukee, Teresa Carlson, said investigators have not linked anyone else to the attack or found any kind of note left by Page.
The Sikh community holds out hope.
"We just want to get to the bottom of what motivated him to do it," said Amardeep Singh, an executive with the New York-based Sikh Coalition. "It's important to acknowledge why they lost their lives."
Page, a 40-year-old Army veteran, opened fire with a 9 mm pistol at the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin shortly before Sunday services. The dead included temple President Satwant Singh Kaleka, who was shot as he tried to fend off the shooter with a butter knife.
Page shot a responding police officer at least eight times in the parking lot before another officer wounded Page in a shootout. Police had earlier said Page was killed by the officer, but Carlson said Wednesday that Page shot himself in the head after being hit and died of the self-inflicted wound.
The fragments of Page's past that have emerged suggest he lived a somewhat troubled life.
A native of Littleton, Colo., he had a record of minor alcohol-related crimes in Texas, Colorado and North Carolina. He was demoted during a stint in the Army for getting drunk on duty and going AWOL before he was discharged in 1998. Page eventually moved to Wisconsin, living in South Milwaukee with a girlfriend and working third-shift at a brazing factory in Cudahy, another Milwaukee suburb.
That is eerie. That's the site of the Columbine killings.
Maybe it was the third shift that drove him nuts.
Neighbors said the couple broke up this past spring.
Maybe that did it.
Page moved into a Cudahy duplex in mid-July and quit showing up for work around the same time. A few days after he moved into the duplex, he visited a West Allis gun shop and, after clearing background checks, bought the gun he used in the shooting.
The Southern Poverty Law Center has described Page as a "frustrated neo-Nazi" who participated in the white-power music scene, playing in bands called Definite Hate and End Apathy.
They have been outed as a intelligence operation, sorry. Name sure looks and sounds good, though.
Rajwant Singh, chairman of the Sikh Council on Religion and Education, said even though Page is dead, other white-supremacy and neo-Nazi groups could harbor similar intentions. "Our concern is, how do we tackle these hate groups operating underground or in darkness?" he said.
Tell government intelligence agencies to stop creating them to justify their jobs and tyranny as they push forward the plans of their monied masters!
The FBI has classified the incident as domestic terrorism, a violent act for social or political gain.
Page's girlfriend, 31-year-old nursing student Misty Cook, faced some legal trouble herself, though Carlson said Wednesday that her arrest over the weekend was not connected to the shootings. Cook was arrested on a weapons violation Sunday after investigators interviewed her about Page, but Carlson said she was cooperative and was quickly released.
???? Was she the agent or asset that got to Page?
Globe actually does us a favor with the switcheroos:
The FBI's Carlson said though investigators have not yet determined what drove Page over the edge or that anyone nudged him along the way, they continue to search to make sure.
Is it just me, or does it feel like my suspicions are being confirmed by inference and implication?
Investigators probably will collect all bullets and fragments from the temple and the victims' bodies to confirm they came from Page's gun. Detectives also will pore over witness statements to make absolutely certain he was the only shooter, said Joe LeFevre, chairman of the forensic science department at Fox Valley Technical College in Appleton.
Authorities are interviewing Page's family, friends and associates. Agents spent Monday morning doing a door-to-door sweep on his street, chatting with neighbors on their front porches and in their backyards.
"It's like any crime," said Jack Ryan, a Rhode Island attorney who trains police around the country. "You focus on their recent tracks. You focus on friends, acquaintances. He had to get ready for this plot somewhere."
The investigation could take weeks or longer. But Page's motive is the key.
If detectives determine Page simply held a personal grudge, the Sikhs and the rest of the public will have an answer. If investigators conclude he was motivated by racist ideology, that might lead police to accomplices, help collect intelligence on white supremacist groups and prevent future attacks.
That's why he was "embedded."
South Milwaukee police had said Cook was taken into custody on a tentative charge of being a felon in possession of a firearm. Milwaukee County sheriff's spokeswoman Fran McLaughlin says the 31-year-old Cook also went by Brenda Cook. Online court records show that Brenda Cook pleaded no contest in 2005 to a felony charge of fleeing an officer.
Gee, she REALLY IS LOOKING like an INTELLIGENCE AGENCY OPERATIVE!
The voicemail on Cook's cellphone was full and wouldn't accept a message. However, in regard to the shooting, she told the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel in an email: "If I could say something to ease the pain of the victims and their families, I would gladly do so. Unfortunately, words do not begin to heal the pain they are going through."
No matter how thorough the investigation, the final conclusions are bound to leave victims with many of the same anguish-filled questions.
We seem to have them after every horror show.
"Whatever the answer is, we can be reasonably sure it won't be an answer many people would say makes sense to them," said University of Wisconsin-Madison law professor Michael Scott, who is writing a guidebook for police on hate crimes.
"We'd like to have some peek into that twisted mind. But in the end, it's still a peek into a twisted mind that doesn't tell us anything we didn't already know about human nature."
Take a peek if you want, readers.
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Related:
"The FBI wrapped up its investigation Thursday."
That wasn't long, and down the memory hole it goes.
"Funeral held for 6 victims of Wis. shooting; Sikhs restore temple, except one bullet hole" by Dinesh Ramde | Associated Press, August 11, 2012
OAK CREEK, Wis. — A white supremacist’s deadly rampage....
Ya' got that?
Army veteran Wade Michael Page used a 9mm pistol last Sunday to kill five men and one woman and wound three other people, including a police officer, in the ambush on the temple. He took his own life after exchanging gunfire with officers, including one he shot nine times.
The carnage could have been much worse, said Harpreet Singh, the nephew of one of the victims. At the first sound of gunfire outside, two children raced into the kitchen and warned people to take cover. Thirteen women were there preparing meals for the day, crammed into a pantry with a man and the two children.
The pantry, a side room off the main kitchen, has only enough standing room for about three or four people comfortably. But the 16 waited in petrified silence for almost two hours, doing their best to ignore the smoke wafting throughout the room from food burning on the stove.
Page’s view of the pantry was probably blocked by the large refrigerator near its entrance, Singh said.
‘‘Otherwise who knows what would have happened,’’ he said....
US Attorney General Eric Holder told mourners the rampage was an attack not only on Sikhs but on American values.
Why doe$n't the government adopt that attitude if it is so commendable, huh?
‘‘You’ve inspired the best of who we are,’’ Holder said.
The worst is in our reaction to 9/11, especially the invasion of Iraq and the introduction of "legally" instituted torture -- which Holder has absolved.
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Also see:
Sikh temple rededicated, holds 1st Sunday service since attack
Sikh priest hurt in hate shooting shows progress
Interfaith community to support Sikhs on Thursday evening
