When eight people died in a mass shooting at an Indianapolis FedEx facility Thursday night, the news was compounded by a string of similar incidents that preceded it.
Starting on March 16, when eight people were killed at three Atlanta-area spas, the US has had at least 45 mass shootings, according to CNN reporting and an analysis of data from the Gun Violence Archive (GVA), local media, and police reports.
The US has seen at least 147 mass shootings in 2021, according to data from the GVA, a non-profit based in Washington.
An incident is considered a mass shooting if four or more people are shot, wounded, or killed, excluding the gunman; according to the GVA.
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 “suicide by cop,” the bureau said yesterday, as investigators searched for a motive in the latest mass shooting to rock the US.
Coroners released the names of the victims late yesterday. Four of them were members of Indianapolis’ Sikh community — another blow to the Asian American community that comes 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 amid the coronavirus pandemic.
The Marion County Coroner’s office identified the dead as Matthew R Alexander, 32; Samaria Blackwell, 19; Amarjeet Johal, 66; Jasvinder Kaur, 64; Jaswinder Singh, 68; Amarjit Skhon, 48; Karlie Smith, 19; and John Weisert, 74.
The shooter was identified as Brandon Scott Hole of Indianapolis, Deputy Police Chief Craig McCartt told a news conference.
Investigators searched a home in Indianapolis associated with Hole and seized evidence, including desktop computers and other electronic media, Chief McCartt said. The home is located in a neighbourhood of midcentury houses near Interstate 465.
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, Chief McCartt said.
He said the shooter apparently killed himself shortly before police entered the building. He said he did not know if Hole owned the gun legally.
“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.”
Chief 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, he said. Several people were wounded, including five who were taken to the hospital.
A FedEx employee said he was working inside the building Thursday night when he heard several gunshots in rapid succession.
“I see a man come out with a rifle in his hand and he starts firing and he starts yelling stuff that I could not understand,” Levi Miller told WTHR-TV.
“What I ended up doing was ducking down to make sure he did not see me because I thought he would see me and he would shoot me.”
Paul Keenan, special agent in charge of the FBI’s Indianapolis field office, said yesterday 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.
A police report obtained by The Associated Press shows that officers seized a pump-action shotgun from Hole’s home after responding to the mother’s call. Mr Keenan said the gun was never returned.
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Chief 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. He said police have not yet uncovered a motive for the shooting.
Police Chief Randal Taylor noted that a “significant” number of employees at the FedEx facility are members of the Sikh community, and the Sikh Coalition later issued a statement saying it was “sad to confirm” that at least four of those killed were community members.
This content first appear on 9news