In North Carolina, he remained active in the white-power music community, as a guitarist and vocalist. He roomed and played music with Brent Rackley, a member of the Confederate Hammerskins, part of a larger organization that was once “the top dog in the skinhead world” and probably numbers in the hundreds, Potok said.
Reached by phone in North Carolina, Rackley’s father, Joseph Rackley, declined to discuss his son but said he was stunned by the shootings.
Civil rights group, the Southern Poverty Law Center, says Wisconsin shooting suspect Wade Michael Page was a member of the most violent parts of the white supremacist scene: the racist, skinhead music scene.
“I’m freaked out about the incident itself,” Joseph Rackley said. “It is just senseless and any other word you’d like to use to describe it. I hate it for the survivors of those who lost someone. I have nothing but sympathy for them.”
Debbie Tanna, spokeswoman for the Cumberland County Sheriff’s Department in Fayetteville, confirmed that the department had a few interactions with Page while he lived there. He was issued five gun permits on May 5, 2008, although it is not known whether he bought weapons.
Authorities issued a warrant for his arrest in October 1997 after he wrote a bad check.
It’s unclear why Page moved to Wisconsin. For about the first half of this year, he lived in a two-story apartment in South Milwaukee with his girlfriend and her son, said David Brown, who lived a floor below them. Page was not a warm neighbor, he said.
“He wasn’t friendly. He wasn’t outgoing at all,” Brown said, adding that when he would greet Page, “he’d just shrug and walk off.” Sometimes Brown would see him in the basement lifting weights. “Just him and weights and a lot of moaning.”
Sometimes Brown would see Page carrying an instrument, perhaps a guitar or a keyboard.
“The only time he had a little bounce in his step was when he had a music thing and was heading out. I understand that. Shooting people, I don’t understand,” Brown said.
A woman who answered the phone at a number listed to Page’s grandparents in Littleton, Colo., identified herself as Page’s grandmother. At times breaking into tears, she described how impossible the shootings were to believe.
“He was just a nice person,” she said, then gasped, adding: “I can’t understand him taking six other people’s lives.”
Two weeks ago, she said, her grandson inexplicably sent a bouquet of red roses to her home.
Police on Monday identified Paramjit Kaur, a 41-year-old woman, as one of those killed. The other victims, all men, were identified as Sita Singh, 41; Ranjit Singh, 49; Satwant Singh Kaleka, 62; Prakash Singh, 39; and Suveg Singh Khattra, 84. Singh is a common surname for men in the Sikh religion. The wounded officer was identified as Lt. Brian Murphy, 51, a 21-year veteran of the department. He is in critical condition, Oak Creek Police Chief John Edwards said.
On Monday, members of the Sikh community here in Oak Creek wept after the victims’ names were read during a news conference. One man wiped the tears from the face of another who had sunk to the floor during the event at the police station.
Another asked FBI Special Agent Teresa Carlson how many people like Page are scattered across the country. “That is the problem,” she replied. “Nobody knows.”
The attack jolted Internet message boards trafficked by white supremacists, some of whom urged more, similar actions. SITE Intelligence Group, which monitors radical groups on the Web, reported Monday a flurry of activity on racist message boards, including one thread exhorting the community to “stop talking and start doing.”
The record label that released Page’s music and published the interview called the attack a “tragedy,” saying in a statement that it had worked hard to be “positive.”
“Label 56 is very sorry to hear about the tragedy in Wisconsin and our thoughts are with the families and friends of those who are affected,” it said. “Please do not take what Wade did as honorable or respectable and please do not think we are all like that.”
Leonnig and Somashekhar reported from Washington. Julie Tate in Washington contributed to this report.
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