San Francisco Chronicle - (Sunday)
Sikh community mourns victims of shooting spree
INDIANAPOLIS — Amarjit Sekhon, a 48yearold 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 seven other FedEx employees — four of them Sikhs — has left that community stunned and in mourning, her brotherinlaw, Kuldip Sekhon, said Saturday.
He said his sisterinlaw began working at the FedEx facility in November 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 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 whether 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.
About 90% of the workers at the site near the Indianapolis International Airport are members of the local Sikh community, police Chief Randal Taylor said.
Kuldip Sekhon said his family lost another relative in the shooting — Kaur, who was his son’s motherinlaw. 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.
“My nani, my family, and our families should not feel unsafe at work, at their place of worship, or anywhere. Enough is enough — our community has been through enough trauma,” she said.
There are between 8,000 and 10,000 Sikh Americans in Indiana, according to the coalition. Members of the religion, which began in India in the 15th century, began settling in Indiana more than 50 years ago.
The attack was another blow to the Asian American community a month after six people of Asian descent were killed in a mass shooting in the Atlanta area and amid ongoing attacks against Asian Americans during the coronavirus pandemic.
The shooting comes the week Sikhs are celebrating Vaisakhi, a major holiday festival that among other things marks the date Sikhism was born as a collective faith.
“While we don’t yet know the motive of the shooter, he targeted a facility known to be heavily populated by Sikh employees, and the attack is traumatic for our community as we continue to face senseless violence,” said Satjeet Kaur, the Sikh Coalition’s executive director.
The coalition says about 500,000 Sikhs live in the U.S. Many practicing Sikhs are visually distinguishable by their articles of faith, which include the unshorn hair and turban.
People gathered at the Olivet Missionary Baptist Church on Saturday afternoon to mourn and to call for action.
“The system failed our state the other night,” said Cathy Weinmann, a volunteer with Moms Demand Action. “That young man should have never had access to a gun.”