Irish American hero cop praised after Wade Michael Page’s Sikh temple massacre

New York Irish cop shot nine times asked officers to help the injured first - VIDEO

Larger Text

Print

E-mail

11 Comments

Oak Creek Police Lieutenant Brian Murphy, native of Brooklyn, has been hailed as a hero

Photo by Google Images

Tweet

Oak Creek Police Lieutenant Brian Murphy was shot nine times at close range by neo-Nazi Wade Michael Page at the Wisconsin Sikh temple massacre on Sunday. Despite being gravely injured Murphy waved on officers coming to his aid, motioning for them to help the wounded inside.

Murphy, from New York, was among those shot , as Page opened fire. Twelve people in all were killed and Murphy and his colleague, Sam Lenda, were among those wounded.

Although he is in critical condition at the Froedtert Hospital, in Wauwatosa, he is expected to survive.

Oak Creek Police Chief John Edwards said the Associated Press that as his fellow officers arrived on the scene Murphy waved them on.

He said “As they approached him, he waved them off. He had been shot nine times, one of them very serious in the neck area, and he waved them off and told them to go into the temple and assist those in there.”

Despite his pleas officers dragged him to a squad car before continuing into the temple.

Speaking to the New York Daily News newspaper his father James Murphy (78) spoke about his son Brian and Terry, who just retired from the NYPD Intelligence Division.

The proud father, a retired city sanitation worker, said “I raised two brave guys.”

The wounded officer’s colleagues in Wisconsin say that Murphy still have that New York chutzpah and accent despite being on the ground in Milwaukee for over two decades.

Thomas Bauer, the town’s former police chief, told The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel “He’s a highly distinguished police officer, highly decorated.”

Murphy (51) is expected to survive his injuries but it is expected that the bullet lodged in his neck may have caused some permanent damage.

Dr Gary Seabrook, the director of surgical services at Froedtert Hospital. He said “He clearly was in a blaze of gunfire.”

His father said “Brian can’t talk because that bullet is in a sensitive spot…He’s not out of the woods yet.”

However his father is confident his son will make it through. He said “He could walk through walls, that guy…It’s terrible he had to take all those bullets, but he was helping people who were in real trouble.”

The FBI have identified the lone shooter as 40-year-old Wade Michael Page. He is being described as a frustrated white supremacist who sometimes went by the name “Jack Boot” and has been playing guitar in racist rock bands since serving in the military in the 1990s.

His reasons for targeting this Sikh congregation remain unclear.

On Monday ABC News reported that Page was associated with the white-supremacist group Volksfront. However this group has since denied this condemning his actions and his “demented criminal cowardice”.

Here’s the CNN report on Wade Michael Page:

Print

E-mail

Tweet