Police say the gunman and the eight victims he killed in the Indianapolis FedEx shooting massacre still have not been identified as desperate families waited in a nearby hotel for news of their relatives some 12 hours after the rampage unfolded.
The rampage started at the FedEx operations center in Indianapolis just after 11pm on Thursday when the gunman immediately opened fire with a rifle after getting out of his car in the parking lot. He kept shooting as he made his way into the facility before killing himself as police arrived on the scene.
Four people were killed outside the building and another four inside. Several people were also wounded, including five who were taken to the hospital.
During a press conference on Friday morning, deputy police chief Craig McCartt revealed that the eight victims have still not yet been identified.
Harrowing images emerged overnight of family members gathering at a nearby hotel to await word or be reunited with loved ones.
Officials with the coroner’s office said they have not been able to get to the scene to identify the victims because evidence is still being collected. They said in Indiana that a positive ID is confirmed by identification by a family member, dental, DNA and fingerprints.
McCartt said they were also still working to confirm the gunman’s identity but they ‘have an idea’ of who he might be. The FBI are in the process of searching a home possibly linked to the shooter, authorities said.
The rampage started at the FedEx operations center in Indianapolis just after 11pm on Thursday when the gunman immediately opened fire with a rifle after getting out of his car in the parking lot
Police work the crime scene on Friday morning after a gunman opened fire on a FedEx facility in Indianapolis overnight in an attack that left nine dead, including the gunman
Police and crime scene investigators continued to process the crime scene on Friday morning. Police are still working to identify the gunman and victims. It is not yet clear if the gunman was an employee at the facility and a motive for the attack is not yet known
McCartt would not speculate if the gunman was an employee and refused to say if witnesses had recognized him.
Authorities were still trying to determine the gunman’s connection, if any, to the FedEx warehouse.
Describing the rampage, McCartt said the carnage took just a couple of minutes.
‘It did not last very long,’ he said, adding that police do not yet know the motive for the shooting.
‘The suspect came to the facility. He got out of his car and pretty quickly started some random shooting. There was no confrontation. He just started randomly shooting. He went into the facility for a brief period of time,’ he said.
McCartt said he doesn’t believe the gunman made it through a security area where employees are required to show ID and go through metal detectors.
In the early hours of Friday morning, more than 100 frantic relatives of warehouse workers rushed to the scene before being told to wait at a nearby hotel for news on the victims.
Some were seen still dressed in their pajamas and many were still waiting to be reunited with relatives by mid-morning on Friday.
‘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?’ said Mindy Carson, holding back tears in the early hours of Friday. Her daughter, Jessica, works in the facility and she still had not heard from her.
Police said the ‘frustrating’ delay in reuniting relatives was due to the fact that some employees are not allowed to carry their cellphones on them while on the warehouse floor.
That policy meant many employees were forced to flee without being able to retrieve their phones, which are often locked away elsewhere. FedEx is understood to be reevaluating this policy in the wake of the shooting.
Police said they do not believe the cellphone policy meant they delayed in receiving the initial 911 calls reporting the incident.
Family and friends wait for word of their loved ones who were at the FedEx Ground facility during a shooting in Indianapolis, Thursday night, April 15, 2021. Some said employees aren’t allowed to have their phones with them while working shifts at the facility, making it difficult to contact them, WTHR-TV reported
Pictured: People hug after learning that their loved one is safe after a shooting inside a FedEx building Friday, April 16, 2021
Family members await information about their loved ones who work at the FedEx facility in Indianapolis where a mass casualty shooting occurred late Thursday, on Friday, April 16, 2021
Family members await information about their loved ones who work at the FedEx facility in Indianapolis where a mass casualty shooting occurred late Thursday, early Friday, April 16, 2021
Relatives of those working in the facility waited at a nearby hotel – many in their pyjamas – to hear news about their loved ones
Family and friends wait for word of their loved ones who were at the FedEx Ground facility during a shooting in Indianapolis, Thursday night
Employees have since detailed their accounts of the rampage, with one employee Levi Miller telling NBC’s Today that he heard more than a dozen shots before he saw the hooded gunman screaming and firing.
‘I stand up, I see a man, a hooded figure,’ he said. ‘I was unable to see his face in detail. However, the man did have an AR in his hand, and he started shouting and then he started firing at random directions.’
Miller said he didn’t recognize the gunman but his colleagues had said he was a ‘well-known worker at this facility’. He said it was possible the gunman was trying to target the manager.
Other eyewitness accounts also confirmed the gunman was armed with a rifle.
One eyewitnesses reported seeing a ‘man with a sub-machine gun or automatic rifle’ firing in the open before people started fleeing.
Two more eyewitnesses reported seeing a man getting a gun from the trunk of his car.
One victim’s uncle told Fox59 his niece had been sitting in her car when a gunman opened fire on her. He said she was recovering in hospital.
Another man told WTTV that his niece was sitting in her car in the driver’s seat when the gunfire erupted, and she was wounded. ‘She got shot on her left arm,’ said Parminder Singh. ‘She’s fine, she’s in the hospital now.’
He said his niece did not know the shooter.
WRTV reports that workers hid under conveyor belts during the incident.
Timothy Boillat, another employee at the facility, told WISH-TV that he saw around 30 police cars arriving at the scene as he witnessed the shooting unfold.
‘After hearing the shootings, I did see a body on the floor,’ he said. ‘Luckily, I was far enough away to where he [the shooter] didn’t see me.’
IMPD spokesperson Genae Cook speaks with a person looking for information on the people inside the FedEx building where multiple people were reportedly shot at the FedEx Ground facility early Friday, April 16, 2021, in Indianapolis, Indiana
In the early hours of Friday morning, more than 100 frantic relatives of warehouse workers rushed to the scene before being told to wait at a nearby hotel for news on the victims.
A bus transports people from the scene of a shooting at the FedEx Ground facility in Indianapolis
Pictured: The scene outside a FedEx facility in Indianapolis where multiple people were reportedly shot late Thursday night, April 15, 2021. Multiple emergency service vehicles could be seen outside the facility
It was the latest in a recent string of mass shootings across the U.S. Last month, eight people were fatally shot at massage businesses across the Atlanta area, and 10 died in gunfire at a supermarket in Boulder, Colorado.
It was at least the third mass shooting this year in Indianapolis alone. 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 at argument at a home in March.
In the wake of the shootings, Indianapolis Mayor Joe Hogsett said the community must guard against resignation and ‘the assumption that this is how it must be and we might as well get used to it’.
Gov. Eric Holcomb ordered flags to be flown at half-staff until April 20, and he and others decried the shooting, with some noting how frequent such attacks are.
‘We wake up once more to news of a mass shooting, this time in Indiana. No country should accept this now-routine horror. It´s long past time to act,’ Secretary of Transportation Pete Buttigieg, who is from Indiana, tweeted.
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she was ‘horrified and heartbroken’ by the shooting in Indianapolis and called for congressional action on gun control.
‘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.
President Joe Biden and Attorney General Merrick Garland were both briefed on the shooting, and Biden’s chief of staff and homeland security adviser have been in touch with local leaders and law enforcement officials in Indianapolis.
Source link