8 dead in US shooting at Fedex facility; cop kills unarmed boy
INDIANAPOLIS: A gunman killed at least eight people at a Fedex facility in the midwestern US city of Indianapolis before turning the gun on himself in the latest in a string of mass shootings in the country, authorities said on Friday.
The incident came a week ater President Joe Biden branded US gun violence an “epidemic” and an “international embarrassment” as he waded into the tense debate over gun control, a sensitive political issue in the United States. Ater this latest killing he again ordered flags flown at half staff at the White House and other public buildings.
Biden said he had been briefed on the shooting and called gun violence “an epidemic” in the US.
“Too many Americans are dying every single day from gun violence. It stains our character and pierces the very soul of our nation,” he said in a statement.
Chicago shooting: In a separate development, disturbing bodycam video released ater public outcry over the Chicago police shooting of a 13-year-old boy shows the youth appearing to drop a handgun and begin raising his hands less than a second before an officer fires his gun and kills him.
A still frame taken from Officer Eric Stillman’s jumpy nightime body camera footage shows that Adam Toledo wasn’t holding anything and had his hands up when Stillman shot him once in the chest about 3 am on March 29. Police, who were responding to reports of shots fired in the area, say the boy had a handgun on him before the shooting. And Stillman’s footage shows him shining a light on a handgun on the ground near Toledo ater he shot him.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she was “horrified and heartbroken” by the shooting and called for congressional action on gun control. “As we pray for the families of all affected, we must work urgently to enact commonsense gun violence prevention laws to save lives & prevent this suffering,” the Democratic leader said in a tweet.
Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogset said the community must guard against resignation and “the assumption that this is simply how it must be and we might as well get used to it.”
Police scoured a Fedex facility in Indianapolis and interviewed scores of witnesses on Friday in search of a motive for the latest mass shooting, as family members of the eight victims spent agonising hours waiting for word on their loved ones.
Authorities identified the shooter as a young man in his 20s. They said they could not yet say why he opened fire with a rifle late on Thursday night at a Fedex processing centre near the Indianapolis airport.
Police Chief Randal Taylor also noted that a “significant” number of employees at the facility are members of the Sikh community. Taylor spoke from a hotel where family members are awaiting word on their loved ones. He says he will stay with the families until they get more information.
Deputy Chief Craig Mccart of the Indianapolis police said the gunman started randomly shooting at people in the parking lot and then went into the building and continued firing. He said the gunman apparently died by suicide shortly before police entered the building.
“There was no confrontation with anyone that was there,” he said. “There was no disturbance, there was no argument. He just appeared to randomly start shooting.”
Mccart said four people were killed outside the building and another four inside. Several people were also wounded, including five taken to the hospital.
The carnage took just a couple of minutes. “It did not last very long,” he said.
“This is a devastating day and words are hard to describe the emotion we feel,” said Fedex chairman Frederick Smith in a leter to employees, adding that the company was working with law enforcement.
‘Body on the floor:’ Four people with gunshot wounds were transported by ambulance, including one in critical condition, police said. Three were transported with other injuries, while two were treated at the scene and then released.
One man who was working a twilight shit at the plant told local broadcaster WISH-TV he saw the gunman start shooting and heard more than 10 shots.
“I saw a man with a sub-machine gun of some sort, an automatic rifle, and he was firing in the open. I immediately ducked down and got scared,” Jeremiah Miller said.
“My friend’s mother, she came in and told us to get inside the car. What we’ve been doing (since) is telling everyone, our co-workers not to go to work today.”
Nervous relatives gathered at a hotel Friday morning near the plant for news of loved ones who work there and were not allowed to use their cell phones on the floor, news media said.
Police spokeswoman Genae Cook told reporters that officers were called to an “active shooter incident” at around 11:00pm.
“The officers responded, they came in, they went in and they did their job. A lot of them are trying to face this because this is a sight that no one should ever have to see,” Cook said.