用音乐抒发仇恨的杀手
His music, Wade M. Page once said, was about “how the value of human life has been degraded by tyranny.”
韦德·M·佩奇(Wade M. Page)曾经说过,他的音乐主要讲述“暴行怎样贬损了人的生命价值。”
But on Sunday, Mr. Page, an Army veteran and a rock singer whose bands specialized in the lyrics of hate, coldly took the lives of six people and wounded three others when he opened fire with a 9-millimeter semiautomatic handgun in a Sikh temple in Oak Creek, Wis., the police said, before officers shot him to death.
但据警方透露,上周日,这位退伍军人手持九毫米口径的半自动手枪在威斯康星州奥克里克的锡克寺庙残酷射杀6人、射伤3人,随即被警方击毙。佩奇还是一名摇滚歌手,他的乐队热衷于抒发仇恨。
密尔沃基市中心,人们点起蜡烛为死伤者祈祷。经常前往当地另一所寺庙的曼吉特·辛格(Manjit Singh)说,这里的每个人都认为这肯定是一起仇恨犯罪案件。
To some who track the movements of white supremacist groups, the violence was not a total surprise. Mr. Page, 40, had long been among the hundreds of names on the radar of organizations monitored by the Southern Poverty Law Center because of his ties to the white supremacist movement and his role as the leader of a white-power band called End Apathy. The authorities have said they are treating the shooting as an act of domestic terrorism.
对于那些追踪观察白人至上主义组织活动的人来说,这次的暴力事件并不完全出人意料。南方贫困法律中心(Southern Poverty Law Center)一直在监测此类组织,早就已经把现年40岁的佩奇列入了数百人的黑名单,原因是他与白人至上运动有关,还担任推崇白人优越主义的乐队End Apathy的领队。当局表示,他们打算将此次枪击案作为国内恐怖主义事件处理。
In Oak Creek and in the nearby leafy neighborhood of Cudahy, Wis., south of Milwaukee, where Mr. Page lived in the days before the attack, the magnitude and the nature of what had happened were only beginning to sink in, grief competing with outrage. A company flew its flag at half-staff. A Christian minister offered his parishioners’ help to a Sikh gathering at the Salvation Army.
枪击案发生之前几天,佩奇居住在威斯康星州密尔沃基南部的卡德西,那是邻近奥克里克的一片树木掩映的街区。奥克里克和卡德西的人们刚刚开始充分感受到枪击事件的严重性以及事件的实质,心情又是哀伤又是愤怒。一家公司降半旗表示哀悼。一位基督教牧师派教民前往救世军组织(Salvation Army)为锡克教集会帮忙。
Peter Hoyt, 53, a neighbor of Mr. Page’s in Cudahy who often stopped to chat with him during morning walks, said he was “stunned” that the man he had known could have done something so violent. Mr. Page, he said, told him that he had broken up with a girlfriend in early June.
53岁的彼得·霍伊特(Peter Hoyt)是佩奇在卡德西的邻居。清晨散步时,他经常停下来与佩奇聊天。霍伊特说,听说是佩奇实施了如此暴行,他感到非常“震惊”。霍伊特表示,佩奇曾透露,他在6月上旬与女朋友分了手。
“He didn’t seem like he was visibly upset,” Mr. Hoyt said about the breakup. “He didn’t seem angry. He seemed more emotionally upset. He wasn’t mad. He was hurt.”
“当时他看上去并不是十分沮丧,”霍伊特谈到分手事件时说。“他的样子也不像是生气,更像是心烦意乱。他没有气得发疯,只是受了伤害。”
Mark Potok, a senior fellow at the Southern Poverty Law Center, said Mr. Page had come to the center’s attention a decade ago because of his affiliation with rock bands known for lyrics that push far past the boundaries of tolerance.
南方贫困法律中心的资深研究员马克·波托克(Mark Potok)表示,该中心十年前就开始注意佩奇,因为他与一些摇滚乐队关系密切,而这些乐队创作的歌词远远超出了大众的容忍范围。
“The music that comes from these bands is incredibly violent, and it talks about murdering Jews, black people, gay people and a whole host of other enemies,” Mr. Potok said.
“这些乐队的歌曲极其暴力,讲述怎样杀害犹太人、黑人、同性恋者以及其他许多‘敌人’,”波托克说。
But Mr. Potok said the center had not passed any information about Mr. Page to law enforcement.
但波托克表示,他们没有将佩奇的信息转交执法部门。
“We were not looking at this guy as anything special until today,” he said. “He was one of thousands. We were just keeping an eye on him.”
“在今天之前,我们没有给予佩奇特殊关注,”他说。“他只是几千人中的一员。我们只是留意他的行为而已。”
Although little known among music fans, a steady subculture of racist and anti-Semitic rock bands has existed on the margins of punk and heavy metal in Europe and the United States since at least the 1970s. Hate groups sometimes use some of the bands and their record labels for fund-raising and recruiting, according to the law center and the Anti-Defamation League.
虽然没多少乐迷知道那些推行种族主义和反犹主义的摇滚乐队,但从20世纪70年代起, 这种亚文化就稳定发展,一直存在于欧美的朋克和重金属音乐圈边缘。据南方贫困法律中心和反诽谤联盟(Anti-Defamation League)透露,各种仇恨组织有时会利用这些乐队和他们的唱片公司筹集资金、招募成员。
J. M. Berger, an author and analyst on counterterrorism who runs the Intelwire Web site, said Mr. Page “clearly had a history with the white supremacist movement.” A song called “Welcome to the South” by Definite Hate, another band that Mr. Page played in and that Mr. Berger found online, refers to “our race war” and asks, “What has happened to America/That was once so white and free?”
J.M.伯杰(J.M. Berger)是一名作家兼反恐分析人士,经营着Intelwire Web网站。他说佩奇“很明显与白人至上运动有渊源。”伯杰在网上发现了一个名为“Definite Hate”的乐队,佩奇曾是该乐队成员。该乐队有一首名为《欢迎来到南方》(Welcome to the South)的歌曲,其中提到了“我们的种族战争”,并且问道,“美国怎么了/白人的天下、自由的世界哪去了?”
Although Mr. Hoyt, his neighbor, said Mr. Page had claimed that he enlisted in the Army after Sept. 11, Army records show that he separated from the military in 1998. Listed as a psychological operations specialist, he was never deployed overseas, according to the records, although Mr. Hoyt said he had talked about combat.
据邻居霍伊特所说,佩奇声称自己在9月11日之后应征入伍,但军方的记录显示,1998年之后,他就与军队脱离了关系。根据相关记录,他被列为心理战专业军士, 从未被派往海外作战。然而霍伊特说,他曾谈论过战争。
“He said, ‘You go there, and one minute you’re with your buddies and the next minute you’re dead,’ ” Mr. Hoyt recalled.
“他说,‘到了战场,可能前一分钟你还在和弟兄们并肩作战,下一分钟就死了,’” 霍伊特回忆说。
A source familiar with Mr. Page’s military history, who had not been authorized to speak about the case, said Mr. Page had received an “other than honorable” discharge from the Army, suggesting that he had been pushed out of military service. Pentagon officials said Mr. Page had also been demoted, from sergeant to specialist, before leaving the service, another indication of problems.
一位熟悉佩奇的军队经历,却未得到授权谈论此事的消息人士称,军队给了佩奇一个“不算光彩的”解职处分,说明他是被强制退伍的。美国国防部官员说,佩奇在退伍前还曾被降级,从中士降到了专业军士,这也表明此人有一系列的问题。
In June 1994, while at Fort Bliss in El Paso, police arrested Mr. Page and charged him with criminal mischief for kicking holes in a wall at a bar called the Attic. He pleaded guilty to the misdemeanor, paid a $645 fine and completed 24 hours of community service.
1994年6月,在埃尔帕索的布利斯堡,佩奇因为踢破了一家名为阁楼(Attic)的酒吧的墙壁而被警方逮捕,警方还以刑事破坏的罪名对他提出了指控。之后,他对自己的错误行为供认不讳,缴纳了645美元的罚金,并完成了24小时的社区服务。
After leaving the Army, Mr. Page, a native of Colorado, lived for several years in North Carolina, where he owned a property that Wells Fargo foreclosed on in January.
离开军队后,科罗拉多州土生土长的佩奇又在北卡罗莱纳州生活了几年,他在当地拥有一处房产,但富国银行(Wells Fargo)在今年一月份取消其赎买权。
Mr. Page’s stepmother, Laura Page, 67, who divorced his father more than a decade ago, described Mr. Page as “a precious little boy, a very mellow and soft-spoken person.”
佩奇的继母、67岁的劳拉·佩奇(Laura Page)在十多年前和佩奇的父亲离婚。她说佩奇是“一个宝贝小男孩,非常温柔,说话很温和。”
In an interview in Denver, where she lives, Ms. Page said she had known her stepson since he was 10. As a child, she said, he worshiped the guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan. His aspirations and dreams all centered on music.
佩奇的继母在现居地丹佛市接受了一次采访, 说自己从佩奇10岁起就认识他了。她说,还是孩子的时候,他很崇拜吉他手史蒂维·雷·沃恩(Stevie Ray Vaughan)。他的抱负和梦想全部与音乐相关。
“Wade, his father and me would go camping and fishing in Colorado and have just a wonderful time, and we would play games at home, like cards and Monopoly,” Ms. Page said. “We just did the normal things that a family does.”
“在科罗拉多的时候,韦德、他父亲还有我经常去宿营和钓鱼,度过了一段美妙的时光。我们还经常在家里玩游戏,打牌或者玩大富翁,”佩奇的继母说。“我们的家庭活动和一般家庭一样。”
For most of his childhood, Ms. Page said, Mr. Page lived with his mother, a dog groomer, but she died when he was 13 or 14, and “he took it very hard.” He was not close to his father, she said, and after his mother’s death he moved in with a grandmother and an aunt in Colorado. He enlisted in the military after graduating from high school.
她还说,佩奇的大部分童年时光都是和他的生母一起度过的。他的生母是一位宠物狗美容师,在他十三四岁的时候去世,“这件事让他非常痛苦”。佩奇的继母说,佩奇和他的父亲并不亲近,生母过世之后,他就搬了家,跟科罗拉多的祖母和阿姨住在一起。高中毕业之后,他就加入了军队。
“I can’t imagine, I can’t imagine what made him do this,” Ms. Page said.
佩奇的继母说,“我无法想象,无法想象是什么原因让他这么干的。”
While residents in Oak Creek struggled to understand, the three victims wounded in the shooting were struggling simply to survive. Among them was Lt. Brian Murphy, the first officer to arrive at the temple after 911 calls began flooding the Oak Creek Police Department at 10:25 on Sunday morning.
正当奥克里克市的居民努力试图理解这种行为的时候,枪击案中的三名伤者正在挣扎求生。这些人当中包括布赖恩·墨菲中尉(Lt. Brian Murphy)。周日早上10点25分,911报警电话都快把奥克里克市警察局的电话打爆了,接到电话后,他第一个赶到了现场。
Lieutenant Murphy, 51, took in the scene and then stopped to tend to a wounded victim in the parking lot. When he looked up, a man with a gun was standing over him. Mr. Page fired eight or nine shots at close range, striking Lieutenant Murphy in the neck, Chief Edwards said. But when other officers rushed to help him, he waved them on — the victims in the temple came first.
51岁的墨菲中尉看清了当时的场景,之后他停下来,在停车场照顾一个伤者。抬起头的时候,他看到一个人拿着枪站在自己身边。警长爱德华兹(Chief Edwards)说,佩奇朝墨菲中尉近距离开了八九枪,击中了他的颈部。但是,当其他警察冲过来想帮助墨菲中尉的时候,他挥手让他们继续向前,先去营救寺庙里的受害者。