There’s been multiple shootings at a Sikh temple in Wisconsin with fatalities. It’s being called a domestic terrorist situation. Events are fluid and developing. Live coverage here. Apparently at least one guman entered the temple during a Saturday morning service and started blasting. Cops arrived and there was a shootout — the gunman and chief suspect was killed, at least one officer was injured. It’s unclear if this thing is completely over though. Police are actively clearing out entire neighborhoods.
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All I can say is that it’s well past time we start calling these things terrorism. Seems that whenever a white person does something like this it’s an “isolated incident”. I hope the brave officer who was wounded recovers quickly and that we can find a cause for this attack soon. Unfortunately him being dead means we may have to guess. But better than that being called a martyr for the anti-muslim people.
crosspost from Pharyngula:
It was a white guy with a 9-11 tattoo. The feds are calling it terrorism.
We will have to wait for more info, but right now it looks like some idiot who can’t tell the difference between Sikhs and Moslems.
There have been 700 attacks directed against Sikhs including three murders since 9/11.
Apparently there are ‘a number’ of Americans who relate Sikhs to the Taliban and/or Osama Bin Laden and that they are somehow responsible for the 9-11 attacks. Sadly, the stupid turns deadly.
Comparative religion classes save lives.
@2. raven :
Right now is just far too early to say, I’d say. We do not know really and that speculation of someone possibly mistaking Sikhs for Muslims is no more than conjecture.
Sure it won’t be too long till we know a lot more with a a lot more solid basis for understanding what’s happened.
My condolences to the victims at the Sikh temple and their families and friends and community.
(Not too early to say that much whatever the motives.)
News report updated scroll down for police press video :
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2012-08-06/gunman-opens-fire-in-sikh-temple/4178734
The religious nut jobs will blame us, no matter what we learn about the shooter.
So the shooter is a white male, a 40 year US military member. Cue the right wing, corporate media downplaying this as a “random, isolated act”, not a deliberate hate crime and claim it’s not an anti-muslim shooting.
How much ignorance, mental instability and blind allegiance to ideology did it take for the clown to go on his rampage? And how can anyone claim – though they will try – that this was not a hate crime, not motivated by the colour of the victims’ skin?
There have been violent acts during the 1990s in Canada and England’s sikh communities, but those were sectarian disputes amongst their own members. The violence in Wisconsin is clearly a different case.
http://www.pbs.org/wnet/religionandethics/week224/cover.html
Addendum:
I don’t know about anyone else, but it’s fairly obvious to anyone who pays attention that sikh clothing and skin colour bear little resemblance to muslims. Even if we were talking about Pakistani muslims whose skin is the same colour as Indians (having once been a unified country), sikh clothing and turbans are very different from muslim. It takes dementia or blind ignorance not to be able to distinguish them.
A page describing different turbans
Information is still scarce, but the news reports describe him as a white supremacist.
We may never know if he targeted the Sikhs because they had brown skin, were nonxians, or he thought they were Moslems.
The xian terrorists tend to be socially and mentally dysfunctional. They aren’t very bright.
The first news site I looked at this morning on this subject had commenters blaming it on Obama. Wingnut leadership will shortly be following suit, not doubt.
leftover1under:
Don’t you think that’s sort of beside the point? It shouldn’t matter who they are; they shouldn’t be being shot at.