Sikh Temple Shooter Was Member of Skinhead Band; Had White Supremacy Ties

UPDATE #2: USA Today has some more statements from the SPLC:

Heidi Beirich, director of the [SPLC] center's intelligence project, tells the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel that her group had been tracking Page since 2000, when he tried to purchase goods from the National Alliance, a well-known hate group.

Beirich says there was "no question" Page was an ardent follower and believer in the white supremacist movement. She said her center had evidence that he attended "hate events" around the country.  "He was involved in the scene," she said.

The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel piece has more:

Also on Monday, a volunteer human-rights group called Responsible for Equality And Liberty (R.E.A.L.) found links between Page, his band and a white supremacist website called Stormfront. 

Jeffrey Imm, who heads R.E.A.L., said in an interview Monday that someone based in Milwaukee using the name "End Apathy" began posting on the website in February 2008. Additionally, appearances by Page's band were promoted on the Stormfront site, including a white supremacist gathering in March 2012 in Richmond, Va.

Stormfront describes its mission as follows:

Stormfront is a resource for those courageous men and women fighting to preserve their White Western culture, ideals and freedom of speech and association—a forum for planning strategies and forming political and social groups to ensure victory.

It will definitely be interesting to watch the hate merchants of the "family values" organizations and GOP fringe groups try to distance themselves from this heinous crime and Page's anti-immigrant dogma that mirrors their own.

 
UPDATED: Wade Page's band still has a page on My Space. The image above is from that page.

The far right websites are going to be REALLY, REALLY unhappy with information just released by the Southern Poverty Law Center ("SPLC")which tracts neo-Nazi and white supremacist groups (not to mention anti-gay hate groups like Family Research Council, The American Family Association and other organizations to whom GOP candidates prostitute themselves).  Per a SPLC bulletin, the Sikh temple shooter,Wade Michael Page (pictured at right), was an apparent neo-Nazi who had been the leader of a now defunct racist white-power band.  Words do matter and words do have consequences and people like Page are motivated by the constant litany of hate that comes from the far right and GOP demagogues.  Here are bulletin highlights:

The man who allegedly murdered six people at a Sikh temple in suburban Milwaukee yesterday, identified in media reports as Wade Michael Page, was a frustrated neo-Nazi who had been the leader of a racist white-power band.

In 2010, Page, then the leader of the band End Apathy, gave an interview to the white supremacist website Label 56. He said that when he started the band in 2005, its name reflected his wish to “figure out how to end people’s apathetic ways” and start “moving forward.”

Page told the website that he had been a part of the white power music scene since 2000, when he left his native Colorado on a motorcycle. He attended white power concerts in Georgia, North Carolina, West Virginia and Colorado.  At various times, he said, he also played in the hate rock bands Youngland (2001-2003), Celtic Warrior, Radikahl, Max Resist, Intimidation One, Aggressive Force and Blue Eyed Devils. End Apathy, he said, included “Brent” on bass and “Ozzie” on drums; the men were former members of Definite Hate and another band, 13 Knots.

In 2000, the Southern Poverty Law Center had found that Page also attempted to purchase goods from the neo-Nazi National Alliance, then America’s most important hate group.

 Why do I suspect that Page was likely a fan of Michele Bachmann?