Wisconsin shooter was identified as a white supremacist

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Published time: August 06, 2012 16:14
Edited time: August 06, 2012 21:03

A nonprofit group that monitors white supremacists began tracking the Sikh Temple shooting suspect Wade Michael Page after he tried to purchase goods from neo-Nazis in 2000. This morning, the group republished an interview with the suspect.

The Southern Poverty Law Center called Wade Michael Page “a frustrated neo-Nazi who had been the leader of a racist white-power band.” In 2010, Page gave an interview to white supremacist website Label 56 regarding his band End Apathy.

Page had been a part of the white power music scene since 2000 and also played in hate rock bands.

The suspected shooter said his band’s “concept was based on trying to figure out what it would take to actually accomplish positive results in society and what is holding us back. A lot of what I realized at the time was that if we could figure out how to end people’s apathetic ways, it would be the start towards moving forward.”

Page said he was inspired to start the band out of frustration that people don’t take advantage of their potential. In 2000, the Colorado native left his home state to go on a cross-country road trip with nothing aside from his motorcycle and a backpack. Shortly thereafter, he moved to California and started his band.

“The topics vary from sociological issues, religion, and how the value of human life has been degraded by being submissive to tyranny and hypocrisy that we are subjugated to,” Page said in the interview, describing the type of music his band liked to create.

While on his cross-country road trip, Page attended white power concerts in Colorado, Georgia, North Carolina and West Virginia.

Police have not yet identified the motive of the shooter, who was also found shot dead at the scene, but his affiliation with white supremacist groups may have been a contributing factor.