FedEx shooting
FBI interviewed shooter last year
INDIANAPOLIS (AP) — The former employee who shot and killed eight people at a FedEx facility in Indianapolis was interviewed by FBI agents last year, after his mother called police to say that her son might commit ìsuicide by cop,î the bureau said Friday.
Coroners released the names of the victims late Friday, a little less than 24 hours after the latest mass shooting to rock the U.S. Four were members of Indianapolis’ Sikh community. 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 pandemic.
The coroner’s office identified the dead as Matthew R. Alexander, 32; Samaria Blackwell, 19; Amarjeet Johal, 66; Jaswinder Kaur, 64; Jaswinder Singh, 68; Amarjit Sekhon, 48; Karli Smith, 19; and John Weisert, 74.
The shooter was identified as Brandon Scott Hole, 19, Deputy Police Chief Craig McCartt said. Investigators searched a home associated with Hole and seized evidence, including computers and other electronic media.
Hole began firing randomly
at people in the parking lot of the FedEx facility late Thursday, killing four, before entering the building, fatally shooting four more people and then turning the gun on himself.
“There was no confrontation with anyone that was there,î” McCartt said. “There was no disturbance, there was no argument. He just appeared to randomly start shooting.”î
McCartt said the slayings took place in a matter of minutes,
and that there were at least 100 people in the facility at the time. Many were changing shifts or were on their dinner break. Several people were wounded, including five who were taken to the hospital.
President Joe Biden called gun violence “an epidemic.”
“Too many Americans are dying every single day from gun violence. It stains our character and pierces the very soul of our nation,î” he said. Later, he tweeted, ì”We can, and must, do more to reduce gun violence and save lives.”î
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 ìsuicide by cop.î 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. Officers seized a pump-action shotgun from Hole’s home after responding to the mother’s call. Keenan said the gun was never returned.
McCartt said Hole was a former employee of FedEx. 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. He said police have not yet uncovered a motive for the shooting.
Police Chief Randal Taylor noted that a ìsignificantî number of employees at the FedEx facility are members of the Sikh community, and the Sikh Coalition issued a statement saying it was “sad to confirm”î that at least four of those killed were community members.