Sikh Temple Shooting (Video)

Disbelief.

It's unreal that the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin in Oak Creek was the site of a mass shooting.

This sort of thing doesn't happen here, not on Howell Avenue, not across from Classic Lanes.

A mass murderer doesn't live in Cudahy.

It's shocking. It's terrifying. It's heartbreaking.

From FOX News:

Seven people, including a gunman, were killed in a shooting at a Sikh temple near Milwaukee Sunday in what police say is being treated as an act of domestic terrorism.

Authorities including the FBI, the ATF, the Milwaukee County Sheriff's Department and Cudahy police are now searching a house in Cudahy, Wis., believed to be linked to the suspect, WITI's Brandon Cruz reports.

A source close to the case told Fox News that the suspect is a white male in his 40s who is a former military member.

Prior to starting the search at the 3700 block of Holmes Ave., police asked two blocks of residents to leave the area or remain indoors. FBI agents are there with an armored truck, a trailer and other vehicles. Other law enforcement officers are there too, along with a police dog.

...At a news conference late Sunday afternoon, Edwards released no information about the suspect, including his identity or a possible motive.

But at the scene of the home search, Kurt Weins, a Cudahy resident, told the Journal Sentinel he rented out the upper flat of the duplex to a man in his 40s.

"I had him checked out and he definitely checked out," Weins told the newspaper. "The cops told me they don't want me to say nothing right now."

Authorities were using a bucket truck to peek into the windows of the property Sunday evening.

The Los Angeles Times is reporting some details about the shooter.

Tattoos on the body of the slain Sikh temple gunman and certain biographical details led the FBI to treat the attack at a Milwaukee-area temple as an act of domestic terrorism, officials said Sunday.

The shootings in Oak Creek, Wis., left seven dead, including the gunman, and three critically wounded. One of the injured was a police officer who was expected to survive.

A federal official who spoke on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media refused to say whether the gunman was thought to belong to a hate group or some other violent group because the investigation was still unfolding.

...Federal officials cautioned against thinking that a concrete link to a domestic terrorism group or hate group had been established.

“The investigation will have to continue to see and determine the motive,” said a federal law enforcement official who had been briefed on the early planning for the case. “We don’t know much about the motive at this point.”

Oak Creek police declined to identify the gunman or outline a possible motive.

The designation of “domestic terrorism” under the FBI’s rubric — which was not applied to the Aurora, Colo., theater shooting — implies a political agenda. The FBI defines terrorism as “the unlawful use of force or violence against persons or property to intimidate or coerce a government, the civilian population, or any segment thereof, in furtherance of political or social objectives.”

So the carnage at the movie theater in Aurora was different from the bloodshed at the Sikh Temple.

The shooter in Oak Creek was a domestic terrorist.

The shooter in Aurora was not.

I think when an individual chooses to go into a public place and gun down as many people as possible it's terror.

I understand the political objective element and the significance. Bill Ayers, for example, is a proud domestic terrorist.

But the loss of life from the violence, the pain and the fear that accompany the senseless killing, are indistinguishable.


Video, from ABC News and FOX News:






__________________

It was over seven years ago that Terry Ratzmann opened fire during a church service in Brookfield, killing seven people before killing himself.

Ratzmann was a disgruntled church member, not a terrorist.