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‘It’s Pretty Much a Hate Crime’ — Seven Reported Dead in Sikh Temple Shooting UPDATE: Act of ‘Domestic Terrorism’ UPDATE: Liberals Blame Bachmann UPDATE: Report Says Shooter ‘Had Just Broken Up With His Girlfriend’

Posted on | August 5, 2012 | 48 Comments

While we do not yet have definite information on the identity of a man who went on a shooting rampage in the Milwaukee suburb of Oak Creek, Wisconsin, one worshipper at the Sikh Temple summarized the situation pretty bluntly:

One of the temple’s committee members, Ven Boba Ri, said that based on communication with people inside the temple, the shooter was a white male in his 30s.
“We have no idea,” he said of the motive. “It’s pretty much a hate crime. It’s not an insider.”
According to Ri, the man started shooting after he walked up to a priest who was standing outside, and shot him.
Then he went inside and started shooting.

UPDATE: There will reportedly be a press conference at 5 p.m. ET (4 p.m. in Milwaukee). Jazz Shaw at Hot Air was reporting the story as it broke, and you can see from his updates how confusing these stories tend to be in the first few hours. There are reports that a police officer was badly wounded in a gun battle that took down the shooter.

UPDATE II: Donald Douglas was also on this story early.

UPDATE III: “We do not have a lot of answers right now,” a police spokesman said, beginning he press conference.

Oak Creek Police Chief John Edwards said that the “heroic actions” of his department’s officers “stopped a tragic event that could have been a lot worse.” Chief Edwards said the FBI will be handling the investigation of a crime that is being treated as an act of domestic terrorism.

UPDATE IV: Chief Edwards did not identify the shooter. We have the report of the temple official that the gunman was a white male in his 30s, and the fact that the FBI is investigating the crime as “a domestic terrorist incident,” as Chief Edwards called it, would seem to narrow down the motive a good bit.

There are reports that some people on Twitter are in a hurry to blame this crime on Republicans, as if “let’s go kill some Sikhs” were a plank in the GOP platform, and as if the murder of innocents had no meaning except as an opportunity to play politics.

Linked by The Mr. G Guy — thanks!

UPDATE V: Statement from Mitt Romney:

“Ann and I extend our thoughts and prayers to the victims of today’s shooting in Wisconsin. This was a senseless act of violence and a tragedy that should never befall any house of worship. Our hearts are with the victims, their families, and the entire Oak Creek Sikh community. We join Americans everywhere in mourning those who lost their lives and in prayer for healing in the difficult days ahead.”

So, apparently, shooting innocent Sikhs is not endorsed by Republicans. This news may be a traumatic shock to certain liberals on Twitter, who are in need of psychological counseling.

UPDATE VI: The superior power of Liberal Logic™ enables Twitter users to identify the suspect: Michele Bachmann did it!

Why didn’t the FBI figure this out first? It was so obvious, when Bachmann ran for president with the slogan, “Go Shoot Some Sikhs.”

UPDATE VII: Here’s an important clue:

CUDAHY, Wis. — WISN 12 News has learned that police and FBI agents descended upon a Cudahy neighborhood late Sunday afternoon.
Crews report a police presence in the 3700 block of East Holmes Avenue near Packard Avenue.
Officials are not yet commenting on the situation in Cudahy or what may have prompted the police and FBI response.

We have no evidence that Michele Bachmann recently moved to Cudahy, but according to Liberal Logic™ that doesn’t mean it’s not her fault.

UPDATE VIII: More on the Cudahy situation:

Shortly after 5 p.m. [i.e., 6 p.m. ET], neighbors said a team of law enforcement officers, including from the Milwaukee County Sheriff’s Department and the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, had entered a home in Cudahy.
Police have cordoned off the 3700 block of E. Holmes Ave., just south of downtown Cudahy. A large contingent of law enforcement and fire department vehicles are in the vicinity of what is described as a single family house on the south side of the street. It’s a tree-lined residential neighborhood of single-family homes with some duplexes sprinkled in.
It was unclear whose home it is and how the search may be related to the shooting itself.

Permit me to restate the obvious: We don’t yet know who the shooter was. We don’t know his motive, or his political affiliations.

We have the report of a witness who says it was a white male in his 30s, and we know that the FBI is treating the case as an act of domestic terrorism. This obviously suggests some sort of hateful attitude toward Sikhs, or perhaps a more generalized sort of xenophobia, but until we at least have the name of the shooter, we can’t actually know anything about his motives.

It would not be necessary to state something so obvious, were it not for the fact that those endowed with Liberal Logic™ keep telling us they know exactly what inspired this crime: Michele Bachmann called for an investigation of reports that the Muslim Brotherhood is influencing State Department policy and therefore — as a direct result of Bachmann’s investigation — this guy went on a shooting spree at a Sikh Temple.

Does that make sense to you? No, because you are just a stupid conservative, and therefore don’t have Liberal Logic™ which confers psychic powers on anyone who votes Democrat.

UPDATE IX: Linked by The Lonely Conservative who says:

My prayers and condolences go out to the victims of this terrible crime.

Amen.

UPDATE X: Let’s not jump to conclusions, because it’s a secondhand source, but Jessica McBride of The Patch says she’s interviewed the mother of the gunman’s landlord:

The woman said she is “completely freaked out” and that she believes her son found the man as a renter for his home in the 3700 block of E. Holmes Avenue “through an ad.”
“He lived with my son for three weeks, then the house across the street became empty, and he moved there,” she said.
Her son owns both houses, so he remained the man’s landlord, she said.
She said that she doesn’t know much about the man, other than his first name . . .
“He was quiet. He worked second shift,” she said of the alleged shooter, who has not been named by authorities. “They (her son and the shooter) both worked a lot, so they never got to see each other.”
She said she remembered the man had just broken up with his girlfriend because “he mentioned that to my son. Then he wanted to move on his own. So he moved to the duplex across the street.”

Again: Let’s be cautious, and not jump to any conclusions based on this one report. More information will be available soon enough.

UPDATE XI: More details emerge on the killer.

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Category: Crime, Wisconsin

Comments

  • Pingback: BREAKING NEWS! Shooting At Sikh Temple In Wisconsin | That Mr. G Guy's Blog

  • http://boogieforward.us/ K-Bob

    From a comment at Scoop’s:

    “3-2-1- tea party did it. … Let’s ban guns”

  • Pingback: NRA, Republicans, Tea-Party and Christians get blamed for Sikh Temple shooting on Twitter (as usual) : Fire Andrea Mitchell!

  • Tregonsee

    Funny how quickly you can determine the motivation of a white crazy, but days, weeks, months are required if the perp is of any other ethnic group.  Isn’t that kind of raciest?

  • robertstacymccain

    When a Sikh Temple is reportedly attacked by a white guy, and a temple official calls it a “hate crime,” I’m generally going to believe the temple official, until something is proven otherwise.

  • archonix

     Of course, there’s a certain protected ethnic group that REALLY hates sikhs…

  • http://evilbloggerlady.blogspot.com/ Evi L. Bloggerlady

    It seems pretty hateful to pump bullets into people for no reason.  I would like to know what the motivation was for this.  Sikhs are nice people who do not try to screw with anyone.  

  • Groty1

    To me, referring to something as terrorism implies a political motivation.  I suppose someone may have a grievance about a local or state political issue, but I don’t see what national political issues would cause someone to shoot up a Sikh house of worship.  I’m skeptical. 

  • http://evilbloggerlady.blogspot.com/ Evi L. Bloggerlady

    North Carolina Democrats?  

    Oh yeah, I forgot, the Religion of Peace Pieces®

  • http://www.facebook.com/SarahWW Sarah Wells

    I’d put money on the shooter being another schizophrenic.

  • robertstacymccain

    The point is that, because we are stupid conservatives — and thus are not endowed with the paranormal psychic powers of Liberal Logic™ — we don’t actually know who did it or why.

    Facts? Evidence? That stuff’s for stupid people!

  • DaveO

    How do they know the white male in his 30s isn’t a sikh, a hindu, or a muslim? Or, for that matter, a Democrat?

  • DaveO

    Doesn’t have to be American politics. There’s Indian politics to consider.

  • http://profile.yahoo.com/3WF2ZV2NYXMNXZEY3SXMA3T6KI Lefty

    And a Democrat…

  • http://profile.yahoo.com/3WF2ZV2NYXMNXZEY3SXMA3T6KI Lefty

    Given that he used a handgun…but “ban assault weapons.”
    Given that we’ve already gone over all the relevant facts for the Libbies/Proggies/Lefties already after Aruroa theater, they obviously won’t/can’t learn/listen, bless their hearts.  
    Given that: http://goo.gl/yzoVE
    The average number of people killed in mass shootings when stopped by police is 14.3
    The average number of people killed in a mass shooting when stopped by a civilian is 2.3.
    And that these victims (as in so many other cases) were disarmed by the force of law usually in “gun free zones” and unable to properly defend themselves.
    That the 20,000+ gun laws already in place failed to prevent this, so we need another gun law?  Liberal Logic, yes.
    We need a law that requires law abiding citizens to carry a firearm all the time or pay a penalty/fine, as per Allen West’s suggestion ;)

  • robertstacymccain

    We don’t know anything, although what has been reported so far is rather suggestive of the motive in a very general way. But it takes the psychic power of Liberal Logic™ to get so specific that you can name a Republican congresswoman (or a talk-radio host) as being directly responsible.

    By the way, we have not yet had any comment from the National Association of Deranged Loners.

  • sheryl

    Is Brian Ross on the case? Okay, I am ignorant on this subject I will admit,  I will go and investigate the Sikh (religion?) I heard on the radio that CAIR is asking all religions to denounce this…and of course I do, I always do. I am curious though, has CAIR ever condemned publicly any assault, terrorism, murders, or mayhem against the Jewish people? I really don’t know, just asking, and in know way trying to make light of the situation.

  • Kbenn46412

    Kinda why I don’t think it’s a white guy or we would have hear it 5 hours ago.

  • Pingback: Sikh Temple Shooting Already Being Blamed on Republicans | The Lonely Conservative

  • radargeek

    Was he a white-Mex…I mean Sikh?

  • http://twitter.com/vermontaigne Dan Collins

    The nearest Chick-fil-A, and the only one in Wisconsin, is 25 minutes south in Racine.

  • http://twitter.com/Syncrodox Lloyd S

    No a
    Air India flights involved…all good.

  • Evilbloggerlady

    Or South Carolina Republicans…it is hard to keep them straight.

  • Evilbloggerlady

    Some have the gift of mendouchery.

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=709880186 Eric D. Mertz

     Wow, that is rather pathetic…

  • http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=709880186 Eric D. Mertz

    This is splitting hairs, I know, but a Sikh place of worship is called a Gudwara

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  • http://marezilla.com/ Zilla of the Resistance

     But was it “a white guy” who happened to be screaming “allahu akbar!” at the time of the crime? I’m just asking because normally when such crimes are committed by a “white guy” his full name, including his middle name, and much about his personal life would have already been published by now. And when tehy DO release his name, someone needs to check to see if he was using another name besides the ‘white guy name”, such as an arabic sounding name.

    Sikhs are hated by islam, just like all non-muslims are hated by islam, and devout muslims are urged to annihilate them by their leaders routinely.

    Funny how people are always so eager to blame the TEA party, Sarah Palin, and now Michelle Bachmann, all of whom are not known to ally themselves with terrorists, but those same people will insist that something like the jihad massacre at Ft Hood was simply “workplace violence” which happened to be committed by a self proclaimed soldier of allah and who went through a ritual that muslims do before going on a jihad terror attack.

    I’m just sayin’.

  • http://marezilla.com/ Zilla of the Resistance

     Yep. I have worked with a lot of Sikh people and all the ones I knew were super cool and very nice, decent, people who work very hard.

  • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/EU5DQWQTTHTPO4A4ZYSL3AAV2U Adjoran

     Zombie Strom Thurmond will eat your brain for that!

  • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/EU5DQWQTTHTPO4A4ZYSL3AAV2U Adjoran

     My experience has been the same.

  • http://profiles.yahoo.com/u/EU5DQWQTTHTPO4A4ZYSL3AAV2U Adjoran

     When the name hasn’t been released after this long, it probably means he was Obama’s local Chairman.

  • http://twitter.com/Weirddave0 Dave

    I understand that the cops got him, rather heroically, but I must confess my first reaction was “Sikhs? Someone attacked Sikhs??!! Man, it’d be easier and probably less painful to cover yourself with honey and lie down on an anthill.” You do not mess with Sikhs, they are some of the baddest folks on the planet. Their religion requires them to be armed with knives, and if they draw one, they aren’t allowed to re-sheath it unless it’s been bloodied.  The British called them “India’s Scotts” and along with Ghurkas they were the best of the best in a military that ruled half the world.

  • sheryl

     Oh.My.Goodness. thanks for the information, and people complain about Lent?

  • http://evilbloggerlady.blogspot.com/ Evi L. Bloggerlady

    Eric D. Mertz, sorry, bad joke.  I was referring to some of the SC “Republicans” who viciously attacked Nikki Haley.  They were certainly not conservatives or really republicans, just thugs who attacked Haley for being Sikh and for being the opposing candidate.  

  • http://evilbloggerlady.blogspot.com/ Evi L. Bloggerlady

    I used to go to Sikh bars in Singapore a lot.  Cheap tiger beers and friendly conversation.  

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  • http://twitter.com/ilovegrover Thane_Eichenauer

    “if they draw one, they aren’t allowed to re-sheath it unless it’s been bloodied.”
    This sounds a bit too much like a reference from a TV movie.  Just sayin’.  The Sikh ritual blade is called a kirpan.

  • http://boogieforward.us/ K-Bob

    Yep. A well-oiled piece of machinery by your side is better than a hard-boiled leftist after your hide.

  • http://boogieforward.us/ K-Bob

    What happpened to your link to your website in your avatar?

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  • http://twitter.com/Weirddave0 Dave

    Well, it may sound that way to you, but I assure you that it’s true. That doesn’t mean that it has to be buried in your enemy’s belly, BTW. A small nick in your own thumb can fulfill the requirement. It’s an admirable safety restriction. Sikhs are required to carry the kirpan in order to be prepared to defend the innocent, but knowing that it must be used on either an enemy or on oneself is a pretty good way of keeping the knives sheathed until shit actually gets real.

  • Pingback: PRESS CONFERENCE: ‘Heroic Actions’ of Police Saved Lives in Oak Creek Shooting : The Other McCain

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  • http://twitter.com/ilovegrover Thane_Eichenauer

    It is pretty clear that it would have been more effective to have a pistol.  Blades are a wonderful tool but their time as a useful defense tool are largely in the past.

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