8 Years Later, Sikh Temple Shooting Claims 7th Victim

Baba Punjab Singh succumbs to injuries suffered in the 2012 attack
By Newser Editors and Wire Services
Posted Mar 3, 2020 7:01 PM CST
8 Years Later, Sikh Temple Shooting Claims 7th Victim
In this Aug. 5, 2012 photo, Police walk near the Sikh Temple of Wisconsin in Oak Creek, Wis., after a shooting.   (AP Photo/Jeffrey Phelps, File)

A man who survived being shot in the face during a white supremacist's deadly 2012 attack on a Sikh temple near Milwaukee has died of complications stemming from his injuries, the AP reports. Baba Punjab Singh died Monday, bringing the victim death toll in the temple attack to seven and making it the worst mass shooting in Wisconsin since 2005. White supremacist Wade Michael Page burst into the Sikh temple on Aug. 5, 2012, and shot 10 people, killing six and wounding four, including Singh. Page killed himself during a firefight with a police officer in the temple parking lot. “I think, collectively as a community, (Singh's death) reopens a lot of wounds that might have scabbed over,” said Pardeep Kaleka, whose father, temple president Satwant Singh Kaleka, was killed in the shooting. “But we express condolences to his family and just hope that they over the next couple weeks can have some closure."

Page shot Singh through the cheek, causing a brain injury that left Singh completely paralyzed and struggling with breathing problems, according to the Milwaukee County Medical Examiner's office. He could communicate only by blinking once for “no” and twice for “yes,” Kaleka said. Singh had been living in a Milwaukee nursing home since the shooting. His injuries left him susceptible to urinary tract infections and pneumonia, and he was in and out of hospitals dealing with complications, the medical examiner's report said. He was admitted to a hospital in West Allis, another Milwaukee suburb, on Sunday with suspected pneumonia and a urinary tract infection, according to the report. He died Monday afternoon. The medical examiner's office listed the cause of death as “complications of gunshot wound of the head" and the manner of death as homicide. (Singh's son says he asked at each visit whether he was living in the Sikh spirit of eternal optimism, and his father always blinked twice.)

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