On August 5, 2012, the community of Oak Creek, Wisconsin, became infamous as the site of one of the most notorious hate crimes in US history.
On that sunny summer afternoon, a disturbed man - who had spent years of his life fostering racial and ethnic hatred against non-whites - opened fire on worshippers at a Sikh temple. He murdered seven innocent people and wounded three others before ending his rampage with an eighth death; his own.
This attack was not spur-of-the-moment. It was years in the making, starting almost two decades earlier, when a seemingly-normal young man had enlisted in the US army to proudly serve his country, but had instead left the military a hateful, frustrated, and explosive terrorist.
Hate Nation
To understand what led to the infamous massacre at Oak Creek, it is first necessary to understand the history of the American neo-Nazi movement, and specifically the racist skinhead movement that has taken hold in the United States since arriving from Europe in the late 1960s.
Originating from the 1960s to 1980s punk rock subculture, the skinhead movement was originally non-racist, and symbolized a working-class reactionary movement against the "elites" in society who they felt looked down on blue-collar workers. Skinheads - mostly teenagers or young adults - typically wore leather jackets, shaved heads, pants with suspenders, and steel-toed Doc Marten boots. They became notorious for troublemaking "hooliganism", and would frequently drink in public, throw obscene gestures, and get into fights at soccer matches.
However, when the skinhead movement reached the United States, it quickly found a home in the reactionary far-right movement that was experiencing a resurgence at around the same time. With the support of hardcore neo-Nazi ideologues like Thomas Metzger and William Luther Pierce, the racist skinhead movement exploded across America. Skinheads began donning jackets with neo-Nazi symbols, inking their bodies with racist tattoos, and marching through the streets screaming hateful slogans and giving Nazi salutes.
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| A young racist skinhead attends a neo-Nazi rally in Arkansas in 1992. First emerging in the mid-1980s, racist skinheads quickly garnered a reputation for committing acts of hate-fueled violence, and were often referred to as the "shock troops" of the white supremacist movement. This particular racist skinhead, Daniel Lewis Lee, would later take part in the 1996 torture-murder of an entire family - a crime for which he was executed in 2020. |
Racist skinheads quickly garnered a well-earned reputation for being the most violent neo-Nazi movement in America. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, skinheads were involved in countless hate crimes, violent assaults, stabbings, bar fights, acts of vandalism, and murders of blacks, Latinos, Jews, police officers, and even fellow skinheads themselves.
In November, 1988, a group of racist skinheads were involved in a highly-publicized, televised brawl on the Geraldo Rivera Show, which ended with Rivera sustaining a broken nose. Just days after the brawl, four racist skinheads in Portland, Oregon, brutally beat an Ethiopian immigrant named Mulugeta Seraw to death with a baseball bat - a senseless and ruthless hate crime that horrified the nation.
But out of all the numerous racist skinhead gangs prowling the streets of America, few were as infamous, as influential, and as violent as the Hammerskin Nation.
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| Formed in 1987, the Hammerskins are one of the most notorious neo-Nazi skinhead organizations in the United States. Members have been involved in countless murders, assaults, hate crimes, and other acts of violence. Though the Hammerskins' prominence has declined since the 2010s, they still remain one of the most dangerous white supremacist gangs in the country. |
Formed by a group of racist skinheads in Dallas in 1987, the Hammerskin Nation is one of the largest and most notoriously violent skinhead gangs in the United States. Their symbol - a pair of crossed claw hammers over a cogwheel - was appropriated from the 1982 Pink Floyd film The Wall.
In The Wall, the main character, Pink - portrayed as a young rock star with a tragic past and a mind full of hate - begins to imagine himself as a Hitler-esque fascist dictator, and utilizes the crossed-hammers symbol as a substitute for the swastika. Spiraling into insanity, Pink sings about how he would like to line up Jews, "queers", and minorities "up against the wall" and shoot them, and as he sings, Pink envisions his followers as a mass of hammers, marching in goose-step formation.
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| The Hammerskins' crossed hammers symbol was appropriated from a fictional neo-Nazi group in the 1982 Pink Floyd film "The Wall". |
Though Pink Floyd is, of course, not racist - with the film meant to serve as a negative commentary on neo-Nazism and racism - the Hammerskins seemed to take away the wrong message from The Wall, and have fully lived up to the symbolism of The Wall's fictional neo-Nazi group. Their members have been involved in hundreds of violent assaults, robberies, arsons, hate crimes, and murders.
The Hammerskins are structured much like an outlaw motorcycle club, where recruits who want to join the gang must first spend time as a "hangaround" - a gang associate who, as the name implies, "hangs around" the gang and attends group functions.
After a while, if he is still interested in joining the Hammerskins, the hangaround will spend the next 18 months as a "prospect" - a prospective member in training - doing menial tasks and enduring hazing from full-patch members as he proves his worth to his gang.
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| Much like an outlaw motorcycle club, the Hammerskin Nation requires recruits who want to join their gang to spend time as a "prospect" or a "probate" before they earn their Hammerskins patch, and with it full-member status in the gang. |
To earn their Hammerskins patch - and full member status in the gang - prospects usually have to commit an act of violence, often against a minority. To a Hammerskin - and nearly all racist skinheads, for that matter - violence is as right and necessary as breathing.
Other skinhead groups - rather than engage directly in violence - instead became involved in producing a racist brand of heavy metal music, colloquially referred to as "Hatecore". Racist bands such as Bound for Glory, Definite Hate, Skrewdriver, Max Resist, Blood & Honour, and the Bully Boys produced and distributed hundreds of albums which preached extreme hatred and violence against minorities, Jews, and the government. Though their prominence in Europe was limited due to hate speech laws, the free speech protections provided by the US Constitution enabled this toxic musical subculture to take root among thousands of disaffected white youths.
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| Members of the Midland Hammerskins sing racist lyrics and throw Nazi salutes during a racist skinhead concert in 2003. Hate music has long served as a potent recruitment tool and lucrative source of revenue for the white supremacist movement. |
And it was in this movement that a young, disaffected military veteran - whose life had been somewhat of a failure - would find his calling and embark on a destructive path of hatred, anger, and violence.
Wade Michael Page
Wade Michael Page was born on November 11, 1971, in Aurora, Colorado, to a working class family. He was a bright student who had a taste for punk music since he was 13, but lacked commitment to a career, and after graduating from high school the young man lingered without purpose for several years.
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| Wade Michael Page as a young boy |
In April, 1992, at the age of 20, Page enlisted in the US Army, hoping to become an air force specialist. He first worked as a maintenance man on anti-aircraft missile systems, and was later promoted to Sergeant and assigned to a psychological operations unit at Fort Bragg, North Carolina. A fellow soldier who served with Page described him as "kind of a quiet guy". Ironically, Page's roommate at his barracks at Fort Bragg was a black man - with whom he apparently got along well.
Unfortunately, while Page was stationed at Fort Bragg, he came across literature produced by the National Alliance - an infamous neo-Nazi organization that was, at the time, the most powerful and wealthy distributor of white supremacist and neo-Nazi propaganda in the United States.
Page bought into the National Alliance's message of hatred and white racial superiority. He began having swastikas and other neo-Nazi symbols tattoed on his body, and he frequently referred to his black fellow soldiers as "dirt people". It was only the start of his descent into a hateful, twisted, and increasingly violent lifestyle.
After only a few years in the army, Page's service record was marred by numerous infractions. Page was reportedly lazy and insubordinate, openly drinking while on duty, getting into fights with other soldiers, and sometimes even going absent without leave. In 1998, Page was demoted and later received a general discharge from the army for "patterns of misconduct". The army later cited Page as "psychologically unfit for duty" and banned him from re-enlisting - effectively killing any hopes of a military career for the young man for good.
When he returned to Aurora, Page was angry and disaffected with the world. Selling off everything he owned, Page bought a motorcycle and began riding aimlessly around the country, hanging around local bars and punk rock concerts, until he came into contact with a Hammerskins chapter known as the Northern Hammerskins.
It is not known exactly when or where Wade Michael Page became associated with the Hammerskins. He likely came into contact with the racist skinhead gang around the year 2000, when Page became the lead guitarist for Definite Hate, a notorious white power band that often performed at racist skinhead functions. Page - an avid guitar player since he was 13 - was a skilled musician and quickly made a name for himself in the racist music scene.
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| Wade Michael Page (center, wearing Skrewdriver shirt) chants racist lyrics at a racist skinhead concert in Denver in 2002. |
Between 2001 and 2003, Page was signed up to play in other influential racist music bands, such as Youngland, Blue-Eyed Devils, Max Resist, and 13 Knots - the latter name a reference to the number of coils used in a traditional hangman's noose.
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| Wade Michael Page performs for the neo-Nazi punk rock band Definite Hate at a racist skinhead concert |
In 2005, Page formed his own one-man white power band called "End Apathy" - a name which Page said was a homage to his wish that white people would stop being "apathetic" about Jews and minorities taking over America.
End Apathy became a regular function at skinhead events. It often performed at the annual gathering of the Hammerskin Nation, known as Hammerfest, where Page would sing vile lyrics laden with racial hatred and praising violence. End Apathy produced such hits as "Submission", with lyrics like "Adapt to the trying times, or pay with your life!"
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| The cover to End Apathy's album "Submission is Slavery", showing Page's fist with the letters FOAD ("Fuck Off And Die") tattooed on his knuckles. |
It wasn't long before Page became a dominant figure within the white power music scene. Racist music labels paid him great royalties to distribute his albums, and he was enlisted to perform at multiple racist skinhead concerts attended by the Hammerskin Nation and other white power skinhead gangs.
After spending a few years as a hangaround in a Hammerskin support group called Crew 38, Page became a Hammerskin prospect around late 2009. Over the next year and a half, he would spend much of his time drinking, singing, traveling across the country to different racist skinhead functions, doing menial tasks for full-patch Hammerskin members, and posing for the camera with his fellow skinheads.
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| Page (far right) sings at a hate rock concert while a prospect for the Hammerskin Nation. Note the distinctive patch on his jacket, which reads "Prospect of the Nation" |
In October of 2011, at a hate rock concert in Florida, Wade Michael Page - after spending over a year as a prospect - finally earned his coveted Hammerskins patch, becoming a full member of the Northern Hammerskins. Page celebrated his initiation on a Hammerskins forum.
"Had an awesome time and I am honored to have earned the Crossed Hammers. HFFH!", Page wrote under the username "End Apathy".
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| Wade Michael Page (far left) performs at the Hammerskins' annual hate rock festival Hammerfest in late 2011. Page would earn his "full-patch" status in the Hammerskins at that same festival. |
At that same concert where he was patched in, Page met a young woman named Misty Cook - a "skinbyrd" (female skinhead) in another racist skinhead gang known as Volksfront. Page and Cook began dating, and in March of 2012 Page moved into Cook's apartment in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. He quickly rose up the ranks of the Northern Hammerskins, even becoming their main regional contact officer.
For perhaps the first time in his life, Wade Michael Page seemed to have found a family - if a notoriously racist and violent one - to belong to.
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| Throughout his time in the white power movement, Wade Michael Page adorned his body with numerous racist tattoos. The tattoo on his shoulder - 14 - refers to the infamous "14 words" phrase coined by neo-Nazi terrorist David Lane: "We must secure the existence of our people and a future for white children". |
However, Page's luck wouldn't last. Just as it had ruined his military career, Page's addiction to alcohol would again send him on a downward spiral. After numerous infractions - including being arrested for drunk driving in 2010 - Page was fired from his job as a truck driver in April of 2012.
Page's alcoholism would also destroy his relationship with Misty Cook, who - after several alcohol-fueled fights - broke up with him and kicked him out of her apartment after only a few months of courtship.
At around the same time, in June of 2012, it was revealed that Page had once had a two-year affair with a Native American woman - a cardinal sin in the white power movement. Page's fellow racists branded him a "race traitor" and scorned him, and his membership in the Hammerskins - a membership he had treasured above all else in his life - was revoked. Page was ordered to return his Hammerskins patch and told to never come back.
Now, once again, the 40-year-old Page found himself alone and without a family. But by now, Page's 12 years in the white supremacist movement had filled him with festering hatred.
After leaving Misty Cook's apartment, Page bought a small house in the suburb of Oak Creek, Wisconsin. Unable - or perhaps unwilling - to find another job, Page supported himself by selling his possessions. He spent most of his waking hours alone in his house, brooding and scrawling neo-Nazi slogans on the walls. On the rare occasions he did interact with his neighbors, Page would be violent, bitter, and rude.
"On a scale of 1 to 10, he was about a 1.5", one of Page's neighbors later recalled. "Totally unlikable in every way".
But during this time, the intense hatred festering within Page was boiling over. Nobody knows exactly when or why Page formulated his plan to embark on the violent, hate-fueled killing spree that would make him infamous. But it is highly probable that, after being branded a "race traitor" by his fellow racist skinheads and kicked out of the Hammerskins, Page was determined to show them - and the world - that he was just as racist and full of hate as they were, and that he was willing to act on it.
On July 28th, 2012, Page purchased a 9mm Springfield XDM semi-automatic handgun and several ammunition magazines from a gun store in West Ellis, WI, passing a background check which failed to reveal his poor psychological record from the military. The shop owner who sold Page the gun later said that Page raised "zero red flags", and gave no indication of what he was planning to do.
Page's target for his rampage was the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin, located in Oak Creek. Originating in the Punjab region of India and Pakistan, Sikhism is a monotheistic religion founded in the mid-15th century that emphasizes spiritualism, meditation, moral conduct, remembrance of God, and selfless service to one's community in the name of God.
To this day, it is still unclear exactly why Page chose this particular target, as he was never known to express a particular hatred against Sikhs. Perhaps the neo-Nazi mistakenly believed he was targeting Muslims, against whom he had previously expressed an extreme hatred to friends. Perhaps - having had his life turned upside down by an affair with an "American Indian" woman - Page mistakenly believed that, by targeting Indian nationals, he was striking out against Native Americans.
Or perhaps Page chose the temple for an even simpler reason; it was a place where people who were not white would gather together. Perhaps, in the end, the temple was merely an unfortunate target of opportunity for a disturbed, twisted man with a mind full of hate.
A few days later, Page visited the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin in Oak Creek - likely scouting out the temple in preparation for his attack. He was warmly welcomed by the Sikh worshippers there, who offered him food and the chance to pray with them. Tragically, the kindness and hospitality the temple showed to Page - characteristic of the Sikh-American community - was not to be reciprocated. The worshippers had no idea that the man they had warmly welcomed into their community was plotting to kill them.
On August 5, 2012, the hatred, rage, and malice that had been festering within Page for 12 years would finally boil over.
Unholy Terror
On the morning of Sunday, August 5, 2012, the worshippers of the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin prepared for the morning's religious services. In the temple's kitchen, the women were preparing langar - the communal meal - and religious school services for Sikh children were to start at 11:30 that morning. The temple's president and founder, 65-year-old Satwant Singh Kaleka, was looking forward to the day's events. A deeply religious man, Satwant was preparing for morning prayer, with the temple's young priest - 35-year-old Prakash Singh - scheduled to read from the Sikh religious texts during the service.
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| The Sikh Temple of Wisconsin in Oak Creek. |
At around 5:00 AM that same morning, Wade Michael Page - wearing a white t-shirt with gray lettering, black tactical cargo pants, and a pair of boots with red laces - left his house for the last time, carrying his 9mm XDM pistol and spare magazines in a holster on his hip. A neighbor saw the heavily-tattooed neo-Nazi climb into his red Chevrolet Yukon and drive away.
Page's whereabouts for the next few hours are still unknown. A witness later reported seeing his car parked outside the temple at around 8:00 AM, but it left shortly afterwards for an unknown reason. Perhaps Page ruminated over what he was planning to do. Perhaps he had second thoughts about the violent rampage he was planning to commit. Maybe he had a last-minute burst of conscience, as if some remnant of his humanity briefly spoke to him through the bitter hatred clouding his mind.
If Page did have second thoughts about his rampage, sadly, they weren't strong enough to overcome the hatred that now consumed him. Perhaps, after so many years of living a life full of hatred, violence, prejudice, and rage, Page's spirit was truly and thoroughly broken.
At around 10:21 AM, as worshippers and their children began to enter the gurdwara for morning services, Wade Michael Page pulled his Chevrolet Yukon into the temple's parking lot. He parked near the entrance, put two foam plugs into his ears, and exited his car, leaving the windows open and the keys in the ignition.
As Page walked towards the entrance, he encountered two Sikh worshippers - 41-year-old Sita Singh and his brother, 49-year-old Ranjit Singh - who had just arrived at the temple.
Unaware of the impending danger, Ranjit Singh warmly greeted Page as he approached. "Welcome, sir", he smiled. "Please come inside!"
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| Sita Singh, 41 (left) and his brother Ranjit Singh, 49 (right) |
Without speaking a word, Page immediately drew his pistol and fired three shots into Ranjit Singh's chest, killing him instantly. Page then shifted his aim and fired four more rounds at Sita Singh as he tried to run away, hitting him four times in the back and right arm. Sita fell over the body of his slain brother, dying next to him in the grass.
Page sprinted past the brothers' corpses and reloaded his pistol. He spotted two children - 11-year-old Abhay Singh and his sister, 9-year-old Amanat Singh - standing near the entrance. Page immediately fired two rounds at the siblings, but missed.
Abhay and Amanat ran back into the temple. Abhay rushed into the kitchen, where 15 worshippers were still preparing the communal meal. Out of breath and in a panic, Abhay yelled "There's a white man shooting people outside!"
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| Paramjit Kaur, 41 |
But this was no joke.
Meanwhile, Page strode through the entrance and into the temple's main foyer. He spotted 41-year-old Paramjit Kaur, who was on her knees and praying. Page shot the woman once in the torso, killing her, before grabbing a handful of cash from the temple's collection plate and stuffing it into his pocket.
Hearing the gunfire, the Sikh congregants finally realized that their house of worship was under assault. Immediately, the 15 workers in the kitchen crammed themselves into a pantry and locked the door. Abhay and Amanat ran to the temple's basement.
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| Suveg Singh Khattra, 84 |
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| Baba Singh Punjab, 65 |
Stepping over Suveg's body, Page then opened an adjacent door to a bedroom, where he spotted 65-year-old Baba Singh Punjab taking cover.
As Baba stood up, Page shot him once in the chest and a second time in the head. The man collapsed to the floor, critically wounded and partially paralyzed.
Page returned to the temple's main area, stepping past the body of Paramjit Kaur. Next to the prayer room was a small closet, where Prakash Singh, Satwant Singh Kaleka, and Santokh Singh were taking refuge.
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| Prakash Singh, 39 |
It was a fatal mistake. Page pulled open the door and immediately shot the priest through the eye, killing him instantly. As the gunman entered the room, Satwant Singh Kaleka bravely tried to talk the shooter down. "Please, sir", he beseeched. "You don't have to do this."
Page ignored Satwant's pleas, saying nothing as he raised his pistol again and shot the temple president repeatedly in the chest. As the elderly man fell to the floor, Page turned and fired a shot at Santokh Singh. The bullet tore through Santokh's stomach and exited out his back, but despite the wound Santokh sprinted forward and brushed past Page, running for the exit.
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| Satwant Singh Kaleka |
As Page turned to fire at Santokh again, the dying Satwant crawled forward and - in a final act of heroism - drew his kirpan (a ceremonial knife carried by Sikh priests), grabbed onto Page's pants, and began repeatedly stabbing him in the leg. Yelling out in pain, Page pulled his leg free and fired two shots into Satwant's thigh, severing the Sikh president's femoral artery and leaving him to bleed to death.
Satwant's attack distracted Page from the wounded Santokh, who ran over 200 yards to a nearby house where he collapsed onto the front lawn of Vietnam veteran Jim Haase. Haase - a trained medic - immediately administered first aid and drove Santokh to the hospital.
After killing Satwant, Page left the temple's prayer room and began walking towards the kitchen, where 16 terrified congregants were frantically hiding in the pantry.
As the worshippers hid in the pantry, one congregant realized that she had left the stove on in the kitchen. Fearful a fire could develop, three of the women ran from their refuge back into the kitchen to shut off the stove.
As the trio entered the kitchen, Page rounded the corner and walked into the room. Spotting the three women, he shot one in the leg as he advanced towards the kitchen counter. Leaning over the counter, he fired again, hitting a second woman in the arm. The three women bolted back towards the pantry as Page pursued them, firing a barrage of shots from his pistol.
Miraculously, the women made it back inside and barricaded the door - which had no lock and was made of simple plywood. They braced for bullets to start tearing through the door, but Page did not enter. Looking out the window, he had seen a police SUV pulling into the temple's parking lot.
Instead of continuing his massacre in the temple, Page instead turned back to the parking lot, hoping to add some cops to his body count.
First Responder
By this time, only three minutes had elapsed since Page fired his first shot. The Oak Creek Police Department had received several 911 calls from inside the Sikh temple informing them of a gunman.
At 10:26 AM, the OCPD put out an all-points-bulletin advising a shooting in progress at the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin.
At the OCPD station, 51-year-old police lieutenant Brian P. Murphy decided to take the call. Murphy - who had recently suffered a back injury - was not supposed to be at work that day, but due to a staffing shortage he had volunteered for the shift. He had no way of knowing that morning that he would come dangerously close to never returning home.
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| Lt. Brian Murphy was the first officer to arrive on scene |
Murphy climbed into a police SUV and headed towards the temple. At 10:28 AM - barely three minutes after Page began his rampage, Murphy turned off the road and headed up the road towards the temple.
As he drove through the lot, Murphy noticed the bodies of Ranjit and Sita Singh lying in the grass about 20 feet from the temple's entrance. The officer stopped his SUV and exited to check on the fallen victims. "I need an ambulance", Murphy spoke into his radio. "I do not see a shooter anywhere".
As Murphy turned around to return to his car, he spotted a bald, heavily-tattooed white man in a white T-shirt and black cargo pants exit the temple. He was carrying a 9mm pistol in his right hand and had a black holster on his right hip. Murphy immediately knew it had to be the shooter.
The officer drew his own sidearm - a .45-caliber H&K USP handgun - and confronted Page. "Police! Stop!", he yelled.
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| With his gun drawn, Officer Brian Murphy confronts Wade Michael Page as he exits the Sikh temple. He would be critically wounded in the resulting shootout. |
Page raised his pistol, and both he and Murphy each simultaneously fired a shot at each other.
Murphy's round missed; Page's didn't. The 9mm bullet struck Murphy on the right side of his jaw, tore through his throat, and ripped into his larynx before bouncing off his spinal column and lodging a few inches from his carotid artery.
Murphy knew he'd been shot. Instinctively, the officer ducked for cover behind a parked car, hoping to get a better firing angle on the gunman. But when Murphy looked up from cover, ready to return fire, Page was nowhere to be seen.
Unknown to Murphy, Page had moved to the right instead of forward, flanking the officer from behind. As he moved, Page fired a second round through the back window of the parked car, and as Murphy turned to engage him the gunman fired a third round, tearing off part of Murphy's thumb and sending the officer's sidearm flying out of his hand.
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| Page flanks Officer Murphy from behind and opens fire. |
Now disarmed, cornered, and with no backup weapon, Murphy could only brace himself as Page began rapidly shooting at him at near point-blank range. Round after round tore into Murphy's body, striking him in the hand, torso, arms, leg, and chest.
Page abruptly stopped firing, having run out of ammunition. As the gunman stopped to reload, Murphy - bleeding from multiple bullet wounds - began crawling forward, trying to get underneath the parked car for cover. He wasn't fast enough. Murphy heard the slide from the gunman's pistol lock forward, and as he crawled under the car he and Page made eye contact.
Page gave the officer a cold, hard, emotionless stare as he took aim at Murphy and began firing again. Another round tore through the back of Murphy's left arm, and as Murphy rolled under the car a bullet skimmed off his protective vest and tore into the back of his skull, barely missing his brain.
Page had fired 26 shots at Murphy, hitting him a total of 15 times - only three of which were stopped by the policeman's bulletproof vest. Murphy was still conscious, but was critically injured, incapacitated, and defenseless.
But before Page could finish off his wounded victim, another officer arrived on scene.
Officer Sam Lenda - a firearms instructor and a member of the OCPD's SWAT team - pulled up the driveway towards the temple at 10:29.
Once again, Page chose to attack, abandoning the wounded Murphy and jogging towards Lenda's approaching vehicle.
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| Page (circled) approaches Officer Sam Lenda's squad car |
Officer Lenda had no idea that his fellow officer was down, but he had heard gunfire as he drove his patrol car up the driveway. As he came into the parking lot, Lenda spotted Page walking towards him. Immediately, the officer pulled his car into reverse, unlocked his patrol weapon - a .223-caliber Rock River Arms LAR-15 rifle - and then accelerated forward to close the distance.
"I got a man with a gun in the parking lot. White T-shirt.", Lenda radioed. The officer leaned out the window. "Drop the gun!", he yelled.
Page ignored the warning, inserted a fresh magazine into his pistol, and locked the slide forward. He was ready to kill again.
"Drop the gun! Drop the gun!", Lenda repeated, grabbing his patrol rifle. Lenda opened the car door and attempted to exit, but as he did so he accidentally tangled the rifle sling in his seatbelt.
As Lenda tried to free his rifle and exit his squad car, Page raised his pistol and opened fire. A round smashed through the patrol car's windshield and hit the seat headrest, shattering the glass and spraying shards into the right side of Lenda's face and hand.
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| Glass fragments explode into the air as Page fires at Officer Lenda's patrol car |
Page was advancing now, still firing at the officer. Page quickly moved left, attempting to flank Lenda as he had done with Murphy.
Ignoring the stinging pain in his face, Officer Lenda finally managed to free his LAR-15 rifle. He took cover behind the open car door, aimed at Page, and pulled the trigger. Click.
In the heat of the moment, Lenda had forgotten to chamber a round.
Quickly, Lenda jerked the rifle bolt back, chambered a round, and fired a shot at Page. The shot missed.
Lenda adjusted his aim and fired a second shot. The .223-caliber round ripped through Page's hip, tearing through his stomach and exiting out the other side.
Following his target with his front sights, Lenda fired four more rounds from his rifle as the gunman crumpled to the pavement.
"Shots fired! Shots fired at officer!", Lenda yelled into his radio. He kept his rifle trained on the downed gunman. "Don't move!", he yelled to Page, unsure if the gunman was still alive. "Don't move!"
Page was still alive, but only just. Officer Lenda's second shot had inflicted massive internal injuries on the gunman, destroying his internal organs. Even if the gunman had surrendered, this wound was not a survivable one. As he lay fatally-wounded on the ground, Page knew his rampage was over.
In a last act of defiance, the dying neo-Nazi weakly raised his pistol to his head and fired one final shot.
The massacre was over. The hate-fueled killing spree Page had started only six minutes earlier ended with a seventh death that day - his own.
Lenda spotted the wounded Brian Murphy lying on the ground, propping himself up with his elbows. He ran over to help his fallen comrade, but Murphy urged him away. "There's people hurt inside", Murphy spoke in a raspy voice through his injured throat. "Go help them first!"
Other officers arrived and dragged Murphy back to his squad car, where they administered first aid as they waited for an ambulance. As they did so, Lenda approached the body of Wade Michael Page, kicked away the dead man's gun, and handcuffed his corpse.
12 hours of surgery would later save Lt. Brian Murphy's life, and the lives of three other wounded victims. Tragically, however, the critically wounded Baba Punjab Singh would never make a full recovery. Almost eight years after the shooting - which left him completely paralyzed and unable to communicate except through blinking his eyes - Baba Punjab Singh died from his wounds on March 2, 2020, at the age of 72.
A Light in the Dark
It is often said that the best of humanity can be found in the midst of the darkest of times, and that was absolutely the case in Oak Creek, Wisconsin, in the weeks following August 5, 2012.
Wade Michael Page had intended to sow terror and division through his hate-fueled rampage of violence. He had lived a life of hatred and malice, and in the end that hatred and malice compelled him to strike out against innocent people - whose only crime was being different.
During his time in the neo-Nazi movement, Page had written racist music that spewed vile hatred against other races, and Page himself had told his friends many time that he eagerly awaited a coming "racial holy war", in which white people would band together and annihilate all those he felt were inferior and therefore unfit to live. Perhaps Page even anticipated that his violent rampage would be the first attack of this "racial holy war" that he so eagerly cheered on.
But, in the aftermath of the horrific terror attack of August 5, 2012, the community of Oak Creek didn't respond with hatred, division, or malice. In the midst of tragedy, the community of Oak Creek responded with love, unity, compassion, solidarity, and empathy.
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| A bullet hole on a door frame in the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin, left by one of the 53 shots fired by Wade Michael Page during his August 5th rampage. Today, the scar remains preserved as a memorial. |
Thousands of people in the surrounding area grieved with the Sikh community that week. Thousands more volunteered to donate blood or give money to the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin to help pay for damages, increased security, and medical costs for the wounded victims.
All across Wisconsin - and even the United States - people shared in the Sikh community's grief, and from the tragedy they emerged with a greater resolve to fight against hatred and prejudice with something they all shared - humanity.
"I think this is an assault on all of us", one Milwaukee resident told a reporter at a vigil a week after the massacre. "It's an assault on anybody who's a Milwaukeean, a Wisconsinite, an American, and a human being."
As Officer Brian Murphy lay in critical condition, fighting for his life in the intensive care unit, hundreds of people gathered in candlelight vigils outside the hospital to pray for his recovery and show their support. Hundreds more people - many of whom were not even Sikh - attended vigils, rallies, and ceremonies honoring the fallen Sikh worshippers in a show of solidarity and unity with their neighbors.
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| A banner crafted by members of the Sikh community welcomes Lt. Brian Murphy home after his release from the hospital. Murphy, who has since retired from the police department, was awarded the Medal of Valor for his heroic actions on August 5, 2012. |
American Sikhs were, and still are, no strangers to being victimized by racial hatred in the United States - particularly in the years after 9/11. But even now, as they reeled from a horrific act of violence perpetrated by a self-proclaimed American "patriot", the Sikh community was touched by the immense outpouring of support, grief, and solidarity from thousands of ordinary, hardworking Americans.
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| Hundreds of mourners - many of them non-Sikhs - attend a candlelight vigil in Oak Creek following the massacre of August 5th, 2012. Although Wade Michael Page intended to instill division and terror through his rampage, the tragedy instead united the community together in solidarity against hatred. |
"I want to tell the gunman who took my mother away from me; you may have been full of hate, but she was full of love. She was an American.", said Harpreet Singh Saini, the son of Paramjit Kaur, in a speech before the United States Senate. "Despite everything, I still believe in America and the American Dream."
Wade Michael Page's mission to bring terror, hatred, and division to the people of Oak Creek failed. Instead of turning to hate in the midst of tragedy, the community of Oak Creek, Wisconsin grew closer than ever before, uniting together - and healing together - in a strong show of solidarity in the face of evil.
Extremism in the Military: An Ongoing Problem
The story of the Oak Creek tragedy is, unfortunately, not a new or unusual one. Since the 1960s, there have been dozens upon dozens of cases where active-duty military personnel and veterans have fallen prey to the allure of extremist movements - particularly the American neo-Nazi movement - and many of these extremists have been involved in terrorist attacks, plots, and mass murders.
The list of domestic terrorists who were radicalized while in the military is endless. It includes Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, white supremacist cop-killer Gordon Kahl, mail-bomber Walter Moody, Ku Klux Klan leader and mass shooter Frazier Glenn Miller, racist serial killer Joseph Christopher, and countless others. In fact, a report by journalist and extremism expert David Swanson found that at least 36% of mass shootings in the United States were perpetrated by military veterans.
This statistic isn't surprising. Extremist groups themselves have made a deliberate effort to target both veterans and active-duty military personnel for recruitment. The National Alliance, for example, frequently distributed racist books and propaganda at gun shows - which are popular among military personnel and veterans.
The neo-Nazi Atomwaffen Division has explicitly stated in propaganda that they prioritize recruits with military backgrounds because of their skills in firearms, combat techniques, and explosives. Some of Atomwaffen's regional chapters, in fact, are led by veterans.
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| Members of the neo-Nazi National Alliance distribute racist literature at a gun show in 2003. The National Alliance - like many neo-Nazi organizations - has explicitly targeted military personnel for recruitment into the white supremacist movement. |
There is no singular reason why individual veterans may be drawn to these movements, but much of it may have to do with the way extremist organizations are structured. According to Dr. Pete Simi - a sociology professor and extremism expert at Chapman University - many extremist militias in the US are structured similarly to the military, with a ranking system, uniform, love of firearms, and a collective sense of camaraderie and brotherhood among members.
"It's that sense of familiarity that people are often so comfortable with and are looking for", says Simi. "This can make militias attractive to military members."
This was certainly true of the Hammerskins - the neo-Nazi organization that Wade Michael Page belonged to. Much like the military, the Hammerskins require members to earn their patches through actions demonstrating their commitment to the cause, and - just as in the military - the Hammerskins are a very tight-knit group that value extreme dedication and loyalty to their organization above all else.
"Membership in the organization shows greater commitment to the lifestyle", says Bryon Widner, a former neo-Nazi and a one-time Hammerskin. "Once you join, the other members become your brothers, and usually your partners in crime".
Wade Michael Page's other-than-honorable discharge from the military may have also contributed to his susceptibility to the extremist movement. Dr. Simi stated in a 2013 memo that such a discharge "disrupts the person's military identity and creates an uncertain future", giving veterans "a sense of personal failure". This sense of failure, Simi says, is then "reconstituted as anger towards an 'unjust system'".
So how do we fix this problem? What can we as a country do to prevent what happened at Oak Creek from happening again?
There is no simple answer, but there are multiple steps we can take. Awareness, of course, should be the first and foremost step. Commanding officers in the United States military should be made aware of the various symbolic tattoos, rhetoric, and other manifestations of extremist beliefs and taught to spot these traits in new recruits or active personnel.
But awareness is only half the battle. An effort must be made not only to identify extremism in the military, but to combat it. And combating it cannot be limited to just kicking the person out of the military. This strategy failed horribly when it came to Wade Michael Page and, if anything, only worsened his descent into violence. Extremist ideology itself must be countered and individuals "deprogrammed" from extremism.
The Southern Poverty Law Center has suggested methods to achieve this "deprogramming" - such as establishing mandatory anti-racist and anti-extremist training courses designed to counter the echo chamber of extremist rhetoric, and for a revised military promotion program that evaluates whether or not a candidate for promotion is connected to any extremist organizations.
So far, there have actually been some good signs. The Biden Administration has directed US Defense
Secretary Lloyd Austin to develop a comprehensive strategy to root out extremists in active service and create an "anti-extremist culture" in the military. But the job is by no means over. Extremism in the US military continues to be an ever-present and growing threat to public safety and national security.
Only sustained vigilance and steadfast dedication will resolve this threat - a threat that has festered unchecked for far too long already. We owe it to the seven victims of the senseless massacre in Oak Creek. We owe it to the thousands of others who have fallen victim to acts of preventable hate-fueled violence.
Let us ensure their deaths were not in vain.
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