4 Sikhs among victims of Indianapolis shooting
It’s not clear if shooter targeted the community
INDIANAPOLIS – Amarjit Sekhon, a 48-year-old mother of two sons, was the breadwinner of her family and one of many members of Indianapolis’ tight-knit Sikh community employed at a FedEx warehouse on the city’s southwest side.
Her death Thursday night in a mass shooting that claimed the lives of eight FedEx employees – four of them Sikhs – has left that community stunned and in mourning, her brother-in-law, Kuldip Sekhon, said Saturday.
He said his sister-in-law began working at the FedEx facility in November – after previously working at a bakery – and was a dedicated worker whose husband was disabled.
“She was a workaholic, she always was working, working. She would never sit still unless she felt really bad,” he said.
In addition to Sekhon, the Marion County Coroner’s office identified the dead late Friday as Matthew R. Alexander, 32; Samaria Blackwell, 19; Amarjeet Johal, 66; Jasvinder Kaur, 50; Jaswinder Singh, 68; Karli Smith, 19; and John Weisert, 74.
Police said Brandon Scott Hole, 19, apparently began firing randomly at people in the parking lot of the FedEx facility, killing four, before entering the building, fatally shooting four more people and then turning the gun on himself.
It was not clear if Sikhs were targeted in the shooting. Hole’s motives remained unclear Saturday.
The killings marked the latest in a string of recent mass shootings across the country and the third mass shooting this year in Indianapolis.
Deputy Police Chief Craig McCartt said Hole was a former employee of FedEx and last worked for the company in 2020. The deputy police chief said he did not know why Hole left the job or if he had ties to the workers in the facility.
About 90% of the workers at the facility near the Indianapolis International Airport are members of the local Sikh community, Indianapolis Police Chief Randal Taylor said.
Many of them live in Hendricks County just west of Indianapolis, and on the city’s southside.
Kuldip Sekhon said his family lost another relative in the shooting – Kaur, who was his son’s mother-in-law. He said both Kaur and Amarjit Sekhon began
working at the FedEx facility at the same time last November. “They were both there together for work” when the shooting occurred, he said.
Komal Chohan, who said Amarjeet Johal was her grandmother, said in a statement issued by the Sikh Coalition that her family members, including several who work at the FedEx warehouse, are “traumatized” by the killings.
Paul Keenan, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Indianapolis field office, said Friday that agents questioned Hole last year after his mother called police to say that her son might commit “suicide by cop.” He said the FBI was called after items were found in Hole’s bedroom but he did not elaborate on what they were. He said agents found no evidence of a crime and that they did not identify Hole as espousing a racially motivated ideology.