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Mind Of A Killer

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The white supremacist movement and the Sikh shootings in Wisconsin.

Wade Michael Page (Southern Poverty Law Center)
Wade Michael Page (Southern Poverty Law Center)

The guiding principles of the Sikh faith are truth, equality, freedom, justice and karma.  It was not good karma in Oak Creek, Wisconsin Sunday.  As congregants gathered to pray and cook at the local Sikh temple, 40-year-old Wade Michael Page walked in and began shooting.

Before he was finally killed by Oak Creek police, six were dead, three critically wounded.  Now the headlines – Wade Michael Page and white supremacy.  The tattoos.  The mindset.  The white power music.

This hour, On Point:  The Sikh temple killer Wade Michael Page and the white supremacist movement in America.
-Tom Ashbrook

Guests

Rick Romell, a reporter for the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

Heidi Beirich, leads the Southern Poverty Law Center's Intelligence Project.

Don Borelli, senior vice-president of The Soufan Group.   A former FBI agent, he overesaw hundreds of investigations into foreign and domestic terrorism cases, including: Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, 2009 plot to bomb the New York subway system by Najibullah Zazi, and the 2008 capture and extradition of Bryant Neal Vinas, who plotted with al Qaeda to plant bombs in the Long Island Railroad.

Rajdeep Singh, national executive director of the Sikh Coalition.

From Tom's Reading List

Washington Post "The man who allegedly shot and killed six people inside a Sikh temple south of Milwaukee on Sunday was a military veteran from a neighboring community, Oak Creek Police Chief John Edwards said Monday morning."

Milwaukee Journal Sentinel 'The shooter who opened fire before worship services Sunday at the Sikh Temple in Oak Creek and killed six people before he was killed by police is Wade Michael Page, a 40-year-old Army veteran, U.S. Attorney James A. Santelle said Monday."

Daily Beast "Before he killed six at a Sikh temple, Wade Page was immersed in the shady culture of ‘hate music.’ Chris Lee on the racist rockers who jam at a ‘weird bar in rural Georgia.’"

Slate "Mark Potok and the Southern Poverty Law Center report that Sikh temple shooting suspect Wade Michael Page is "a frustrated neo-Nazi who had been the leader of a racist white-power band." The best evidence for this, right now, is a 2010 interview that Page gave to Label 56, to talk about his band End Apathy."

Video: SPLC On Hate Groups

This Southern Poverty Law Center video was created to help law enforcement agencies better prepare for encounters with skinhead groups.

This program aired on August 7, 2012.

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