Shooting at FedEx warehouse in Indianapolis leaves eight dead
Police in Indiana have confirmed that the gunman was a former employee after yet another mass shooting as President Biden looks to pass gun law reforms.
A gunman opened fire at a FedEx warehouse in Indianapolis, Indiana late on Thursday night, leaving eight people dead with several others wounded in the incident.
The gunman is believed to have killed himself after coming into contact with police officers at the scene. On Friday a spokesperson for FedEx confirmed that the gunman was a former employee at the facility.
The shooting is the latest in a spate of mass shootings across the United States, which has seen at least 45 of such incidents in the last month alone. It comes as President Joe Biden struggles to support for some fairly minor gun law reforms in Congress.
Gunman kills eight people in Indianapolis
At around 11pm on Thursday evening police officers arrived at warehouse used by delivery company FedEx, responding to reports that shots had been fired at the facility. The New York Times reports that several people were already dead by the time law enforcement were on the scene, with the shooting ongoing.
Deputy Chief Craig McCartt of the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department told a press conference on Friday that officers were met with a “very chaotic and active crime scene.” Police believe that the incident began with “some random shooting outside the facility” and was over in “just a couple of minutes.”
Later on Friday police were able to identify the shooter as 19-year-old Brandon Hole, a former FedEx employee who was working at the facility as recently as 2020. Deputy Chief McCartt said of this development: "We've recently identified him so now the work really begins trying to establish some of that and see if we can figure out some sort of motive in this, but we don't have that right now.”
Latest in a spate of mass shootings across the US
The tragic events in Indianapolis marked one month since eight people were killed during shootings at Atlanta-area spas on 16 March. In that time the United States experienced at least 45 mass shootings, according to the Gun Violence Archive (GVA), defined as an incident where at least four people were shot.
In response to the latest attack, Biden called on Washington to “do more” to combat the surging rate of gun violence, and warned that “gun violence is an epidemic in America.”
He added: “We must act. We can, and must, do more to act and to save lives. God bless the eight fellow Americans we lost in Indianapolis and their loved ones, and we pray for the wounded for their recovery.”
Biden is set to sign into law some fairly moderate new executive actions that aim at better regulating the sale of the most dangerous types of firearms, termed “assault rifles”, and at improving funding for community programmes aimed at tackling gun violence.