US mass shooter who killed 8 people at FedEx was a former employee

Indianapolis - Authorities say police seized a gun last year from the suspected shooter who opened fire with a rifle at a FedEx facility in Indianapolis, killing eight

Police scoured a Fedex facility in Indianapolis and searched the gunman’s home on Friday, looking for a motive for the latest mass shooting to rock the US, as family members of the eight victims spent agonising hours awaiting word on their loved ones.

The shooter was identified as Brandon Scott Hole, 19, of Indiana, 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, McCartt said.

McCartt said Hole was a former employee of the company and last worked for FedEx in 2020. McCartt 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 but added that police seized a gun from him last year. McCartt also said authorities are still identifying the victims and that not all of the victims’ families have been notified.

The shooter started randomly firing at people in the parking lot and then went into the building and continued shooting late Thursday night, McCartt said. He said the shooter apparently killed himself 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.”

McCartt said four people were killed outside the building and another four inside. Several people were also wounded, including five who were taken to the hospital. McCartt said the slayings took place in a matter of minutes.

Officials with the coroner’s office began the process of identifying victims Friday afternoon, a process they said would take several hours.

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 “deeply saddened to learn” that Sikh community members were among the wounded and killed.

The coalition, which identifies itself as the largest Sikh civil rights organisation in the US, said in the statement that it expected authorities to “conduct a full investigation — including the possibility of bias as a factor.” The coalition’s executive director, Satjeet Kaur, noted that more than 8,000 Sikh Americans live in Indiana.

The agonising wait by the workers’ families 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 said early Friday, fighting back tears.

“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.”