While the national media occasionally highlight notorious hate
crimes and diligently record the number of people the perpetrators
kill, the names of the victims are rarely remembered.
On August 5, 2012, six Sikhs praying at their Oak Creek, Wisconsin,
temple were murdered by Wade Michael Page, a white
supremacist gunman. Four others were wounded in the neck.
The murder victims were Paramjit Kaur, 41; Satwant Singh
Kaleka, 65, the founder of this Sikh temple (known as a gurdwara);
Prakash Singh, 39, an assistant priest; Sita Singh, 41;
Ranjit Singh, 49; and Suveg Singh, 83. All of the male victims
wore turbans as part of their Sikh faith.
Almost two years later on April 13, 2014, three individuals
who were walking near the Jewish Community Center in a
Kansas City, Missouri suburb, were murdered by Frazier Glenn
Miller, a longtime violent anti-Jewish and white supremacist
racist. The victims included a 14-year-old boy, Reat Griffin
Underwood, and his 69-year-old grandfather, Dr. William
Lewis Corporon. Both were Christians who worshipped at a
local Methodist church. A 53-year-old woman, Terri LaManno,
of Kansas City was killed at the parking lot of Village Shalom,
where her mother resides. LaManno was also a Christian, who
attended a Catholic church in Kansas City. Unbeknownst to
the bigoted gunman at that time, only one person targeted by
his gunfire was Jewish. The uninjured person’s name was not
reported.