8 victims are identified in Indianapolis FedEx shooting

Multiple people were shot at a FedEx facility in Indianapolis and the suspected gunman killed himself, police said.

By CASEY SMITH and RICK CALLAHAN

Associated Press

Published April 15, 2021 Updated April 16, 2021 6:16 PM PT

INDIANAPOLIS — 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 Friday.

Coroner’s officials released the names of the victims late Friday. Four of them were members of Indianapolis’ Sikh community — another blow to the Asian American community that comes a month after six women of Asian descent were killed in shootings in the Atlanta area and amid ongoing attacks against Asian Americans during the COVID-19 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, who was found dead of a self-inflicted gunshot wound, was identified as Brandon Scott Hole, 19, of Indianapolis, Deputy Police Chief Craig McCartt said at a news conference. Investigators searched a home in Indianapolis associated with Hole and seized evidence, including desktop computers and other electronic media, McCartt said. The home is in a neighborhood of mid-century 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, McCartt said. He said the shooter apparently killed himself shortly before police entered the building. He said he did not know whether 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.”

McCartt said that 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 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 say what they were.

Keenan said that 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 his mother’s call.

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 Thursday’s 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 Sikhs.

The coalition, which identifies itself as the largest Sikh civil rights organization in the U.S., said in a statement that it expected authorities to “conduct a full investigation — including the possibility of bias as a factor.”

The families’ agonizing wait was exacerbated by the fact that most employees aren’t allowed to carry cellphones inside the FedEx building, making contact with them difficult.

“When you see notifications on your phone, but you’re not getting a text back from your kid and you’re not getting information and you still don’t know where they are … what are you supposed to do?” Mindy Carson, whose daughter Jessica works at the facility, said early Friday, fighting back tears.

Carson later said she had heard from Jessica and that she was OK.

FedEx said in a statement that cellphone access is limited to a small number of workers in the dock and package sorting areas of the building to “support safety protocols and minimize potential distractions.”

FedEx Chairman and Chief Executive Frederick Smith called the shooting a “senseless act of violence.”

“This is a devastating day, and words are hard to describe the emotions we all feel,” he wrote in an email to employees.

This was at least the third mass shooting this year in Indianapolis. Five people, including a pregnant woman, were shot and killed in January, and a man was accused of killing three adults and a child before abducting his daughter during an argument at a home in March.

Elsewhere recently, eight people were fatally shot at massage businesses in the Atlanta area, and 10 died in gunfire at a supermarket in Boulder, Colo.

Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett 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.”

President Biden said he had been briefed on the shooting and called gun violence “an epidemic” in the U.S.

“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. Later, he tweeted, “We can, and must, do more to reduce gun violence and save lives.”

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco) said she was “horrified and heartbroken” by the shooting and called for congressional action on gun control.

People wait for news in a hotel conference room

“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.