Eight people, four of whom are Sikh, were killed after a 19-year-old white man went on a shooting spree at his former place of employment in Indianapolis last week. The victims of the mass shooting at the FedEx facility, which is predominantly employed by Punjabis and Sikhs, were identified as: 32-year-old Matthew R Alexander, 19-year-old Samaria Blackwell, 66-year-old Amarjeet Johal, 64-year-old Jaswinder Kaur, 68-year-old Jaswinder Singh, 48-year-old Amarjit Sekhon, 19-year-old Karli Smith, 74-year-old John Weisert. Several others were also injured, but their names were not revealed.
Indianapolis Metropolitan Police (IMPD) said Brandon Hole, who worked at the facility last year, shot four of the victims outside of the building and four inside. He then turned the gun on himself. The mass shooting happened during shift change and dinner break for many.
According to IMPD, at least 100 people were in the building at the time.
One of the workers Amarjeet Johal, a grandmother, who was getting ready to leave work when the shooting took place. “When they went to identify her body, she had her paycheck in her hand. She was ready to go,” said Komal Chohan, the grand daughter of Amaarjeet.
Amarjeet, whom Komal described as a maternal figure to everyone in her family, was supposed to be celebrating one of her grandchildren’s birthdays, but she did not make it home. She was also eagerly talking about the younger Johal’s roka (engagement ceremony). “She was so excited. She was going to have the day off tomorrow,” said Johal. “It’s so hard. This is reality. This is something that really happened,” said Johal.
According to police, Hole was armed with a rifle. They said the rampage was over within minutes. There was no confrontation as Hole quickly got out of his car and began shooting. Johal’s uncle, also an employee at the facility, was working at the time. Police have not released any details about a motive; however, members of the Sikh and Punjabi community are calling it a targeted act of violence and domestic terrorism.
Komal said her grandmother overcame many challenges in her life. She, like many Sikhs, fled India after the 1984 Sikh genocide. “They fled being persecuted because of who they are. It’s why most of them left India. They wanted better lives for themselves. They come here and end up in similar situations. It’s just terrible,” said Johal.
“She didn’t need to work. She just did it because she wanted to buy things for her grand kids,” said Johal. Johal described her grandmother as a woman of few words. When she spoke in her soft-spoken voice, she would shower those around her with words of love. Her mere presence would light up a room.
Sikhs call for gun reforms
Members of Indianapolis’ Sikh community joined with city officials to call for gun reforms as they mourned the deaths of four Sikhs in the mass shooting at a FedEx warehouse. At a vigil attended by more than 200 at Indianapolis, Aasees Kaur, who represented the Sikh Coalition, spoke out alongside the city’s mayor and other elected officials to demand action that would prevent such attacks from happening again. “We must support one another, not just in grief, but in calling our policymakers and elected officials to make meaningful change,” Kaur said. “The time to act is not later, but now. We are far too many tragedies, too late, in doing so.”
The attack was another blow to the Asian American community a month after authorities said six people of Asian descent were killed by a gunman in the Atlanta area and amid ongoing attacks against Asian Americans during the coronavirus pandemic.
Kiran Deol, who attended the vigil said loopholes in the law that make it easier for individuals to buy guns “need to be closed now,” and emphasized that anyone who tries to buy a firearm should be required to have their background checked.
“The gun violence is unacceptable. Look at what’s happened … it needs to be stopped,” Deol said. “We need more reform. We need gun laws to be harder, stronger, so that responsible people are the ones that have guns. That’s what we want to bring awareness to.”
