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Wednesday 8 August 2012

Sikh temple shooting: Wade Michael Page killed himself

The gunman who murdered six people at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin was killed by a self-inflicted gunshot rather than police bullets, the FBI revealed today.
Wade Michael Page was shot in the stomach by a police marksman who confronted him at the scene of the killing but as he fell he apparently turned his 9mm pistol on himself.
"Subsequent to that wound, it appears that Page died of a self-inflicted gunshot wound to the head," said Special Agent Teresa Carlson, the head of the FBI's investigation into the massacre at the Sikh gurdwara in the city of Oak Creek.
Initial reports suggested that the lone gunman, who was steeped in Neo-Nazi subculture, had been killed by the stomach injury after he fired nine bullets into Lieutenant Brian Murphy, one of the first officers on the scene. Lt Murphy was badly wounded but expected to survive.
Ms Carlson said the FBI had yet to determine a motive for Sunday's killings but that they were satisfied that Page acted alone.
She also confirmed that Page's ex-girlfriend, Misty Cook, was arrested in Milwaukee shortly after the killings. Officers sent to her home to interview her noticed that she had a gun, despite being banned from owning firearms because of a previous conviction. The arrest had no connection to Page's rampage.
Investigators have interviewed more than 100 people, including Page's family, former colleagues and neighbours and were pursuing more than 100 more leads around the world, the FBI said.
"We have conducted physical searches of his residence, his vehicle, a rented storage locker, and also space he had at a former employer," said Ms Carlson. "I want to reiterate again that after all of this work we still have identified no one else responsible for this shooting other than him. We have also not clearly defined a motive at this point."
As America's Sikh community continued to mourn the victims there was still no explanation for the 40-year-old's shooting spree. Page was kicked out of the US Army for excessive drinking and later fired from his job at a trucking company after being pulled over while driving drunk.
Christopher Robillard, who served with him before his 1998 discharge from the Army, said Page had been involved in white supremacy while in the military. "He would talk about the racial holy war, like he wanted it come," he told CNN. "But to me, he didn't seem like the type of person to go out and hurt people."
Page called another comrade a "race traitor" because of the white man's attraction to Hispanic women.
Page went on to become a prominent figure on the "white power" music scene, joining several bands including the prominent group, End Apathy. The Southern Poverty Law Centre, an organisation that tracks extremist groups, said Page was a well-known Neo-Nazi and they had been monitoring him for a decade.

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