Milwaukee Mass Killer Was US Army Man

Wade Michael Page was shot dead by police after killing six and injuring three at a Sikh temple in near Milwaukee, Wisconsin, US on Sunday. Photo by FBI

The men who killed six and injured three at a Sikh temple near Milwaukee, Wisconsin, US on Sunday, has been identified as Wade Michael Page, 40, a former US Army member between April 1992 and October 1998.

The deadly attack occurred in Oak Creek, suburban Milwaukee, around 10:30 am local time on Sunday. Four people were murdered inside the temple and three outside - including the gunman.

Page ambushed a policeman at the scene, shooting him multiple times, before a second officer returned fire, killing the gunman on the temple's parking lot.

Women and children hid in closets and in the kitchen as the gunfire erupted.

The latest attack came on the heels of a shooting in Aurora, Colorado at a midnight screening of the new Batman film on 20 July. Twelve people were killed and 58 were injured in the attack.

According to the investigation, cited by BBC, Page had worked as a psychological operations specialist and a Hawk Missile System repairman, and was reportedly disciplined for being drunk on duty and going AWOL in 1998, demoted and discharged months later for "patterns of misconduct," and declared ineligible to re-enlist

He told a white supremacist website that he had been part of the white-power music scene since 2000, and tried to buy goods from the National Alliance in 2000, a US neo-Nazi organization, according to the civil rights group, the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Police continue to believe that Page acted alone, despite initial witness reports of more than one gunman. Oak Creek Police Chief John Edwards is quoted saying they were treating the attack as a "domestic terrorist-type incident", and that the FBI would take over the criminal investigation. Officials further inform that are investigating reports that the perpetrator had white supremacist links.

The victims were identified as Sita Singh, 41, Ranjit Singh, 49, Satwant Singh Kaleka, 65, Prakash Singh, 39, Paramjit Kaur, 41 and Suveg Singh, 84.

Three others, including a policeman, remain in critical condition. Chief Edwards said Lieutenant Brian Murphy, 51, had been tending to a victim at the scene when he was "ambushed" by the gunman. The policeman was shot eight or nine times at "very close range."

US President Barack Obama has said "soul searching" is needed on how to reduce violence following a second mass shooting event in the US in a month.

"All of us recognize that these kinds of terrible, tragic events are happening with too much regularity for us not to do some soul searching to examine additional ways that we can reduce violence," Obama stressed.

On his order, flags of the White House and all government buildings are flying at half staff Tuesday.

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