A shotgun was taken into custody at Hole’s home, Marion County district attorney Ryan Mears said. Hole was placed in temporary custody for mental health, the FBI said.
Still, Hole was able to legally purchase assault rifles in July and September 2020, Indianapolis police said.
The case “illustrates the limitations” of state law, Mears said Monday.
Because the rifle removed from Hole’s home was secured and the family did not want it back, prosecutors felt they “ achieved the purpose of the law, ” Mears said. If the state had filed a petition, the court might have found that prosecutors had no legal authority to keep the weapon.
“In this particular case, the petition was not filed because in this particular case the family had agreed to forfeit the firearm in question and they had no intention of pursuing the return of that firearm,” Mears said.
Mears said the state had no access to “anything to indicate that (Hole) had a history or documented diagnosis of mental illness.”
“We have 14 days under statute and because we have 14 days, our ability to access meaningful medical history, meaningful mental health records, is severely limited.” Indiana law allows a person to respond to a subpoena for 30 days, Mears said.
“I think it’s important to note that this case illustrates some of the shortcomings of this red flag law,” Mears said.
“The sad reality is that as long as these cases are pending, there’s nothing forbidding anyone to buy a firearm, that’s just the sad truth,” Mears said.
Eight people killed
The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms traced the two assault weapons used in the shooting, and police found that Hole bought one in July 2020 and one in September 2020, Indianapolis police said in a tweet.
Deputy Police Chief Craig McCartt said Indianapolis Police had found Hole’s name in two previous incident reports. The deputy chief had no information about the first report. The details he described from a 2020 report are consistent with the FBI’s statement.
On Friday night, Indianapolis police released the names of the eight deceased victims. They are: Matthew R. Alexander, 32; Samaria Blackwell, 19; Amarjeet Johal, 66; Jasvinder Kaur, 50; Jaswinder Singh, 68; Amarjit Sekhon, 48; Karli Smith, 19; and John Weisert, 74.
Four of the eight dead were members of the area’s Sikh community, Maninder Singh Walia, a member of the Indianapolis Sikh community, told CNN on Friday.
Four people remained in hospital on Monday with injuries sustained in the attack, FedEx said.
The incident only lasted a few minutes
The shooting started when the shooter “got out of his car and started a random shooting outside the facility pretty quickly,” McCartt said. The shooter “went in and didn’t get very far into the facility at all,” shooting others there, he said.
“I thought it was a car accident, but when I saw the shooter running to the front door with his rifle, I immediately pulled out of the parking lot and called the police,” said Chester.
She waited for him to enter so she could drive away without drawing the shooter’s attention. She called the police from another parking lot and said she was trying to warn other arriving workers that shooting was taking place. Some stopped and some passed her.
“I understand that by the time agents came in … the situation was over – that the suspect took his life shortly before agents entered the facility,” McCartt told reporters.
At least 100 people were in the facility when the shooting began, he said. Many were eating or changing shifts. Four people were found dead outside and four others, not counting the shooter, were dead inside, McCartt said.
Four victims were Sikh
That sentiment was echoed in a letter to the Biden government on Saturday, in which the Sikh Coalition wrote: “It was no coincidence that the shooter had attacked this particular FedEx facility where he had worked and knew it was for the most part. was manned by Sikhs. ”
“The people who were shot and killed were not random targets,” the coalition said. “As such, we implore the government to ensure that this shooting is not simply dismissed by the media or law enforcement officials and recognize what it is – an intentional act intended to do the most harm to various Americans.”
The Sikh community has grown in Indiana in recent years, Walia said. When he moved to the area in 1999, there were about 50 Sikh families there. Hundreds of families have since joined, and many Sikhs have come to Indianapolis for economic opportunity and good schools, Walia said.
Two of the victims, Sekhon and Kaur, were relatively new to Indianapolis and were working night shifts at the FedEx facility when they were murdered, said Rimpi Girn, an Indianapolis resident who knew them.
Sekhon, who immigrated to the US in 2004, moved to Indiana from Ohio in 2019 to be closer to family and relatives, said Girn, a close family friend. Sekhon leaves behind a husband and two sons, ages 13 and 19, Girn said.
Kaur, who immigrated to the US in 2018, was her family’s breadwinner, according to Girn. Sekhon drove Kaur to work because Kaur didn’t have a driver’s license, Girn said.
“They didn’t want to run a night shift anymore,” and they were looking for day shifts with FedEx, Girn said.
The fund said 100% of the donations “go to the families and those affected by the tragedy.”
In addition to bereavement counseling and support resources, FedEx said it is in the process of providing direct financial support for funeral arrangements, hospital costs and other needs.
CNN’s Madeline Holcombe, Harmeet Kaur, Eric Levenson, Steve Almasy, Dakin Andone, Jason Carroll, Meredith Edwards, Jason Hanna, Kay Jones, LaCrisha McAllister, Evan Perez, Shimon Prokupecz, Hollie Silverman, Artemis Moshtaghian and Amanda Watts contributed to this report .