INDIANAPOLIS (WXIN/AP) — Authorities have identified the suspect in a shooting at an Indianapolis FedEx facility as 19-year-old Brandon Scott Hole of Indiana.
Two law enforcement officials briefed on the matter provided the identity to The Associated Press. The investigators are searching a home in Indianapolis associated with Hole and have seized evidence, including desktop computers and other electronic media, the officials said. The officials could not discuss the matter publicly and spoke to the AP on condition of anonymity.
Hole is a former FedEx employee. FedEx spokesperson Bonny Harrison released the information Friday. She says company officials can’t speculate on a motive but are working closely with investigators.
Police say Hole took his own life after killing eight people and injuring several others at a FedEx Ground facility.
IMPD said the shooting happened at the FedEx ground facility in the 8900 block of Mirabel Road. When officers arrived around 11 p.m., they arrived to a chaotic scene but the active shooting incident had ended and Hole was already dead.
Investigators believe Hole got out of his car after arriving and randomly started firing in the parking lot before going inside. There reportedly was no confrontation that preceded the shooting.
The carnage took just a couple of minutes. “It did not last very long,” Indianapolis Deputy Police Chief Craig McCartt said.
Four people were shot outside the facility and another four were shot inside. Five other people went to the hospital with injuries consistent with gunshot wounds. An additional person went to the hospital with a different, unspecified injury.
Officials said the incident lasted just a few minutes. It’s not clear at this time how many people in total were at the facility at the time of the shooting.
No motive has been released at this time. IMPD Chief Randal Taylor said Friday morning they may never know “all the ins and outs about why this occurred.”
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 organization in the U.S., 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 agonizing 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.
Carson later said she had heard from her daughter Jessica, who works in the facility, and that she was OK. She was going to meet her, but didn’t say where.
FedEx said in a statement that cellphone access is limited to a small number of workers in the dock and package sorting areas to “support safety protocols and minimize potential distractions.”
FedEx Chairman and Chief Executive Officer 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.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
