On April fifteenth, twenty twenty one, nineteen year old Brandon Scott Hole opened fire at a FedEx ground facility in Indianapolis, killing eight people and injuring several others before turning the gun on himself. The attack, which lasted less than four minutes, became the deadliest mass shooting in Indiana's history and raised urgent questions about missed warning signs, gun access, and mental health intervention. This is the story of the FedEx shooting.
My name's Ben, I'm Nicole, and you're listening to Wicked and Grim, a true crime podcast.
The following podcast in material intended.
For mature audience listener discretion. He's advised, well, this is weird.
What's weird?
I have a FedEx delivery arriving today, do you Yeah. I rarely ever get anything via FedEx, but today I'm getting something, and today you're covering this case. That's like kind of odd, isn't it.
Yeah, a little bit, a little bit of a coincidence, maybe even serendipitous. Who knows?
Feels odd?
Now, Well, hopefully you just get your package and the delivery person can get home safe at the end of the day.
No kidding, Oh, man.
This is actually kind of an interesting story. There's not I mean, I got a bit to talk about in it, but there's not a whole lot really to unravel in this story, which is unfortunate. But I mean, like, we don't have convictions and all that sort of thing after the fact because the perpetrator turns the gun on themselves, So a lot of the things that we have are from prior to the case and speculative things and discussions that occurred after the fact. That makes any sense.
Okay, what year was this?
I had occurred in twenty twenty one, so.
For okay, yeah, because yeah, and like this is not very old. No, So did you say that in the intro?
I did?
Oops.
Lots of times I'm just like, what did you say?
Again?
I don't know if other people have that problem, but if I'm listening to an audiobook or a podcast, like I rewind a lot because my mind just go somewhere else for a hot minute, and then I'm like, what the shit did they just say?
We actually had this conversation on discord the other day. Oh really, Yeah, people talking about like, you know, having to repeat things and listen back, and I was like, you know, there's situations where even when we're recording, we have to stop and kind of go back because like the person who's listening to the story sometimes zones out, and honestly, while I'm going through scripts sometimes I zone out too, So even though I just read it, I'm like, wait,
what did I read? Kind of like going back in a book, you know.
Well, you see that meme to circulate every once in a while where it's you're at the age now where you need to like turn off the radio to focus on driving or something like that. Yeah, if it's like busy traffic or something, it's like this is too much. I can't. I can't like just turn the sound off.
Yeah, I need to turn down the radio so I can see where I'm going. Yes, But before we move on to the show and talk about this case, we do have some patrons to think, So shout out to John, Alex Greeve, Alex Wright, Melissa Bursara, and Stephanie DeShane. They all joined us over on Patreon get behind the scenes, and of course they get that exclusive episode at the end of the month.
So good list of people.
Yeah, shout out to you guys, and thank you very much for the support. We appreciate it, we sure do. But should we get into this case, let's do it, okay. Well, it started like any other night shift. It was Thursday, April fifteenth, twenty twenty one, and it was just past eleven pm at the FedEx ground facility near the Indianapolis Airport. The warehouse was buzzing with activity. Some workers were wrapping
up their shift, others were just clocking in. More than one hundred people were inside, you know, sorting packages, moving between loading docks, you know, vending machines and brake areas even and that's when the first shot rang out. A man in a hoodie stepped out of his car in the parking lot. Without warning. He raised a rifle and started shooting indiscriminately. Bullets sprayed across the lot, random, rapid
and terrifying. People dove behind cars and ran for buildings, or maybe even some who frozen place, not knowing what to do. But by the time some workers realized what was happening, he was already inside, trying to access the actual workspace. He moved to the lobby and fired round into the open space. Employees screamed and scattered, some tried hid behind sorting equipment. Others ran back outside, straight into
more chaos. The shooter wasn't stopping. He returned to the parking lot and kept firing at anyone in his path. Calls began pouring into nine one one, things like, quote, we have shots fired, shots fired, they're still shooting as we speak. Quote he's shooting at everybody. I don't know how many he's hit. Quote we can't even get through
the turnstills, he's aiming a gun through them. But by the time police pulled up to the building, eight people were already murdered, four in the parking lot, four inside. Several others were wounded, some barely made it out. One employee later said that she hid under a trailer in the loading area and stayed on the phone with a dispatcher from nine to one one for more than thirty minutes. I'm sure if the shooter was still nearby or not,
or where he was, what was happening. And the worst part, no one at the time had any idea why this was happening or even who this guy was. Now, this shooter, he didn't come out of nowhere. Surveillance footage and witnesses accounted later filling in that timeline. He pulled up to the parking lot at about ten fifty four pm, and there he sat in his car for a couple minutes.
At first, no one really noticed, just another vehicle in a sea of night shift workers or delivery trucks, you know, coming and going as constant as the minutes passed by in a clock. Then he stepped out, wearing a black hoodie, a black mask, and armed with two legally purchased which they would later find out ar style rifles. There were no words that were spoken, there was no hesitation. He just began open.
Firing, just like complete chaos.
Complete chaos, indiscriminately just kept firing.
Honestly, it would take me so long to even like.
Understand to process it.
Yeah, because lots of times you even hear loud noises and it could be a gunshot, but then your mind doesn't go there, right, You're like you make an excuse that it's something else or something right, like, you just wouldn't expect that, so before you process what the hell is even happening, it like very well could be too late.
For you for sure, And that's it's human nature to like make up those excuses to assume that it, oh, it's not dangerous, like we're okay, you know. Yeah, it's something that's built into us to think that, no, we're fine.
The last time I heard like a huge bang, I was like in the bath, and I was like, I noted it. And then I just like carried on with my day and oh that was nothing. And then you like get out of the bath and there was like fire, trugs and ambulances all on the road, and here there was like a big accident, and I was just like, what it up?
You know, your brain makes that excuse right now. One FedEx employee, still in their car, barely ducked down time. Another ran for cover behind a concrete pillar. People outside sprinted towards the building, yelling warnings for anyone else to take cover and hide. Others didn't know where to go inside. Outside, they both felt like a trap. So the shooter, after coming out of their vehicle, made their way into the
entryway inside and kept firing. Now, according to witnesses, he was shouting something, but no one could really make out the words, whether it was through the gunshots, the chaosk or the mask he was wearing. The words were just muffled. It wasn't a targeted attack on any individuals. There was no specific person who was working there that was being sought out. He was just firing into the open whoever he saw. A few people tried to duck behind machines.
According to multiple reports, one employee actually had a weapon on them as well, So they had a legally owned firearm which probably wasn't allowed to be on shift.
In the workplace.
Yeah, yeah, but I digress. They did take this weapon and turned back and returned fire. Now presumably being like a pistol or something like that that they would have had. I don't think the capacity of rounds in there would have been very much. And this guy's got high capacity AR rifles, so you can return a couple shots. But that's about the gist of it. And that return fire, as I mentioned, missed and it didn't even slow the gunman down. He just simply kept walking and kept shooting.
Okay, I'm actually not really familiar with those weapons. Is that one where you're kind of hold the trigger and like numerous rounds are kind of coming out or whatever.
So fully automatic, so there's there's single shot, there's semi automatic, and fully automatic. I'm unaware. I'm pretty sure he had fully automatic AR style AR fifteen rifles, but it was at the very least semi automatic. So every time you pull the trigger, a shot is fired, and you can just keep pulling the trigger. No single shot. You generally have to, like you know, reload and fully automatic, you
hold the trigger down and just keep shooting. But the difference is he had high capacity magazines, which basically means it's a clip that holds all your bullets, and you have a high capacity, which means it holds a shit ton of bullets.
It basically means like you do not stand a.
Chance really pretty much. So I don't know how many bullets a high capacity magazine of this firearm would hold. Let's just say, for the sake of argument, it holds thirty bullets. Okay, so thirty bullets versus your handgun, which holds somewhere in the vicinity of maybe five six. Yeah, something like that. You don't stand a chance unless you have a single perfect shot and you can take them out, which unfortunately this person missed. And that's all she really wrote.
So yeah, he just kept firing, kept walking, didn't seem to care.
That's terrifying.
He then made his way towards the facility's main entrance turnedstells, which are like those full height and metal revolving gates of like open when you scan your proper id sort of thing. Okay, this case, obviously it's a FedEx batch because it's a FedEx facility. Now, this guy couldn't get through those gates, but he didn't stop. He aimed between the bars and kept shooting at anyone he saw on
the other side. Once he couldn't make his way into the actual facility, he walked back out through the lobby and back out into the parking lot and began firing again at anyone else he saw who was leaving the facility trying to get to their vehicles or escape. And of course more chaos ensued and there were more bodies.
Good lord, this is just like he's like a madman, eh basically huh.
Now, just a few minutes after it started, it was all over. The shooter then turned the gun on himself and ended his own life. From the first bullet to the last, it happened in under four minutes. That's how fast this went down.
It seemed like it lasted way longer. Than that. And I mean, I'm assuming like for the victims and people in the situation, it would have felt longer, right or would it have felt shorter? Probably longer like forever.
I'm sure it would have felt like forever. And now here's the thing I mentioned already that there was one person who was hiding and on the phone with nine oh one for like half an hour, right, So this happened for four minutes, but that terror kept going like they didn't know where he was, what was happening. They just were terrified and hiding and begging to survive basically yep. Now,
when police arrived, they didn't find that standoff. They found a massacre and a dead nineteen year old laying near the lobby with two rifles by his side, both decked out with my little pony stickers. His name was Brandon Scott Whole, and he was the one who went through and shot eight people and killing them shot more, but killed eight people.
Okay, excuse me, so I don't need to wind where the hell were the my little pony.
Stickers on the rifles?
Are you kidding me? Okay? That seems so I was like on his bumper, like what Okay, no, he gone on the firearms.
They were decked out with my little pony.
Stickers, something so innocent, decked out on something so like evil. Yes, just that is very unexpected.
Okay, Now, my little pony plays a little bit of a part in this story. We'll talk about it here in a little bit, but to the extent it plays is definitely up for debate. But I digress. So it seems like this wasn't a random act of violence, though, because Brandon had a history and this honestly probably could have been all prevented. The day the system could have stopped Brandon was March third, twenty twenty, almost exactly a
year before the shooting occurred. That morning, Sheila Hole, his mother, walked into the Indianapolis Police Department, not as a victim, but as a mother trying to stop her son from becoming something of a monster, or even a victim himself. Her son, Brandon had just turned eighteen. The day before, he bought a shotgun legal but no AMMO, just the gun, and Sheila confronted him about this and things got pretty tense. Brandon snapped, He hit her in the arm, told her
to shut up and then drop the words. No parent ever wants to hear quote, this is not the life I want to live. I'll end it my way. So imagine having your son say that after purchasing a shotgun.
Yeah. I had to just process that for a minute and I was like what yeah, dang.
See. He continued on by saying that he was going to point the gun at police so they'd shoot him. Whoa aka suicide by police?
Oh? Man, was he struggling?
I'm assuming definitely, and we'll get into it.
Okay.
So when that conversation hap happened, she had had enough. Sheila and her daughter made a plan and went straight to the police. Officers responded quickly. They went to the house handcuffed Brandon without incident, but he was He was anxious and panicking, saying, please just turn off the power strip to my computer. I don't want anyone to see what's on it.
Oh and he's saying this to police, yes, oh okay.
This of course raised some eyebrows.
Yep.
And when officers went upstairs to retrieve the shotgun, they also took a look at the monitor. What they saw was exactly what you'd think. There was some heavy content, in particular some white supremacist websites, extreme material and search histories that matched the profile of someone deeply disturbed. Still, Brandon insisted he wasn't suicidal. He told officers that he was depressed, felt sad, and would probably benefit from some counseling. This was all enough for them to place him under
an immediate detention mental health hold. They took him to a local hospital and confiscated the shotgun. On the paperwork, they even wrote quote seized from dangerous person, so he's labeled as a dangerous person that they seized this shotgun. Front. This sounds like the system is doing their job, and the system is working. You know, the policies, the procedures that are in place, they're being followed, and you know, things can be prevented here. But that hold on him,
that mental health hold, it lasted less than two hours. Okay, there was no full psychological evaluation that was ever done, no criminal charges, no court date, no official red flag case. The computer was just left at home and not investigated fully at all either. They just kind of took a quick look and like, oh shit, there's some crazy shit here. Whatever, let's go take the shotgun and bring him in. And then he was released two hours later.
Oh now that okay, I was expecting something a little different, But I mean, I don't know why considering what you've already divulged here.
Now, that shotgun it was never returned, but the rest of the system never really followed through the next day. It was just business as usual. And the problem was that Brandon, he didn't just snap. There were a lot of warning signs that just it went totally unchecked. See, by the time he walked into that FedEx facility with those two rifles, he had been on a long, slow decline and people had been worried about him for years.
His trouble started in elementary school. He was already on the radar, and by fourth grade he was diagnosed with disruptive behavior disorder and anxiety, and possibly, though he wasn't officially diagnosed, it was potential that he had OCD as well. He certainly showed the signs. He had outbursts, trouble focusing, difficulty connecting with other kids, and when you have your OCD. He had routines and if they were interrupted, those teens had to start right over from the very beginning.
Oh okay.
His mother said that as he got older, things only got worse. In twenty thirteen, at the age of eleven, he attacked his mum. It wasn't just a tantrum. He physically assaulted her and left her with minor injuries that landed him on probation and into mandatory counseling. Still, the pattern didn't stop. In twenty fifteen, he was diagnosed with autism spectrum disorder. Over time, his behavior became so severe that he couldn't attend school anymore. Police were called to
the house multiple times. At some point it became clear Brandon wasn't going to be graduating his family. They did what they could. He saw therapists, he was enrolled in behavior programs, but none of it stuck. His mental health challenges were compounded by isolation, confusion about his identity, and what seemed like a growing obsession with violence. Later investigators would describe Brandon as someone who wanted to prove he
was capable, strong, in control, dangerous. He told people he was interested in the military, and he started eating MREs, which are like those ready to eat meals, those rations for soldiers and combat zones.
Yeah.
Now, In the summer of twenty twenty, Brandon made an effort to step out on his own. At eighteen, he moved out of his family home into a place by himself, something investigators would later say was part of his attempt to assert independence, prove his capability. You know, kind of like become a man almost, I guess, and I don't say that it's kind of being a man is actually part of what's going on here.
He probably wasn't ready to be moving out on his own, by the sounds of it.
He may have been, but he wanted that masculinity and that independence. That's what he was searching for now. Not long after, he got a job at the FedEx ground facility.
I was like waiting for this. I'm like he had to have been working there or worked there.
It was the very same one on the south side of or sorry, southwest side of Indianapolis, and he worked there as a package handler on the overnight shift. It was a physically demanding job, but it gave him structure, paycheck, and at least outwardly a fresh start, and for a while it looked like he was trying to put his life together after years of instability, mental health struggles. At least, right, you know, he has something here. He has an independence.
You know, he's got that feeling of being a man for what he's trying to search for, and it's giving him everything he's really looking for. But things didn't stick. Within two months, he stopped showing up for his shifts and he was fired in October of twenty twenty for absenteeisms. He moved back in with his family shortly after, and according to the FBI, this failed attempt at that independence, losing his job, having to return home, it deeply affected him.
It left him feeling defeated, emasculated, and unable to meet expectations that he set out for himself. And that's the big thing here, is what he's setting out for himself. I'm not saying that going out and living on your own and doing a job is something that makes someone a man, you know, is a masculine thing. Those are
the parameters that he's setting for himself. Those are the barriers that he's trying to overcome, saying, you know, if I do these things, I'll feel better, I'll feel independent, I'll feel like a man. That's the sort of thing that's going on.
So he has quite like high expectations kind of for himself. I think at a pretty young age.
Really definitely, and maybe it's not necessarily expectations, but it's hopes thinking, you know what, I can do this, and if I can do this, I can do the next. And if one of those steps along the way fails or he falters, then he beats himself up over it.
Okay.
Now, over time that feeling it turned inward, and then it became darker. Investigators would later conclude that his experience during this period helped shape the motivation behind the attack that he was well already quietly planning. And of course there was the online world. Dark corners of the Internet had fed into his mindset. There was Nazi propaganda, white supremacist forums, hours of browsing through German military content from
World War II. Now, out of the more than one hundred and seventy five thousand files on his computer, fewer than two hundred were directly tied to that kind of content, but it was there. It was a fraction of what he was searching for and what he was watching and what he was saving, but it was part of it. It was enough to get noticed, but not enough to get him stopped. By the time his mother went to
police in March of twenty twenty. The signs had been flashing red for years, but after his brief hospital visit of like two hours, he walked right back into civilian life and right through the cracks of the system that wasn't built to hold him. Now here's the part that still makes many people furious. After Brandon's shotgun was taken away by police in March of twenty twenty, and after he was briefly hospitalized, there was a chance to stop
him from ever legally owning a gun. Indiana has what's known as a red flag law, one of the earliest in the country. It's supposed to give law enforcement a way to step in when someone shows signs that they're dangerous to themselves or others. The process is not too complicated. In fact, if police sees a weapon, prosecutors have fourteen days to go in front of a judge and make the case that this person shouldn't be allowed to buy more guns or firearms. That never happened.
Why the hell not, hey they had, because at one point you said they had kind of deemed him a dangerous person. Yes, so why they just didn't do this one step further?
I guess they didn't.
Oh that is that's pretty shitty.
It is. There's a caveat to it, though, which we'll talk about in a little while.
Now.
That shotgun that Brandon had purchased, it was never returned to him, and neither Brandon nor his family asked for it back. In fact, there is an interview like with a psychologist I believe, or like a social type worker who's on this case, and they're talking to Brandon and they asked Brandon, what should we do with the gun if you don't want to back and he's like, I don't destroy it whatever, it doesn't matter, Okay.
I do have to just say one thing though, regardless of if they had done this, he still could have probably got a weapon if he wanted one. It just would have been a lot harder.
It's hard to say potentially, I mean, where there's a will, there's a way. But at least it makes it much harder to do this, you know, it makes someone think twice. There's more steps to go through it, right for sure, And at the very least it's not on legal conscience. You know, the person who legally sold him the gun. That sort of thing. Right now, maybe prosecutors thought this was enough, but without a formal hearing, no red flag ruling was ever filed. That meant Brandon's name was never
added to any list. There was no restriction or barrier attached to his name. He was still free to walk into a gun shop and buy whatever he wanted even after that incident. And that's exactly what he did. In July and September of twenty twenty, Brandon legally purchased to ar fifteen style rifles from a licensed dealer. These were the same guns that he'd bring back to the FedEx facility seven months later. Now, these weren't black market guns.
They weren't bought in secret. He passed background checks. The system cleared him all because the case never made it to a courtroom.
Yeah, like, it definitely should not have been that easy for him to just walk in there and get these I agree.
However, here's the kicker. If prosecutors had followed through and gotten that red flag order, it would have only lasted one year.
Oh okay, it's not a forever kind of thing.
Yep. After that, they'd go back and proved that he They would have to go back to court and prove that he's still a danger. Okay, so by March twenty twenty one, just weeks before the shooting, the restriction likely would have expired anyways, so he potentially still could have gone out and legally purchased firearms. Okay, it's hard to say what difference it really would have made, but the
opportunity was there and it slipped away. But after his brief stint in the hospital and the gun seizure, Brandon he kept a low profile. He didn't have a job, now, you know, after he got let go from FedEx. He wasn't in school. He mostly stayed at home. But while the outside world saw a quiet kid trying to get his life back together, something else was happening behind those closed doors. According to investigators, Brandon spent at least nine
months planning this attack. He wasn't motivated by revenge on FedEx, though, I want to make that clear. He wasn't out to settle a score with FedEx in you know, wrongful dismissal, or angry about him being fired or anything. In fact, the fb I said this wasn't about an ideology, a race, or work grievance. They simply said that he chose FedEx because he knew it.
Okay, that's what I was thinking.
He knew it, yeah, h he had Sorry, go ahead.
I was just going to say, planning something for nine months. Hey, yeah, that right there just is It's almost kind of it gives you like an uneasy, creepy kind of feeling.
It really does.
These people for nine months you're living there like day to day life, going to work and stuff, and they literally no idea what the hell someone is doing?
Yep, what's coming?
Yeah.
So he worked there in twenty twenty. He was familiar with the layout, the security, the shift change patterns. He knew the parking lot would be full. He knew when you know people will be most vulnerable, that sort of thing. And he didn't talk to anyone about what he was planning. He didn't leave behind a manifesto. There was no clear message. The closest thing he posted came just an hour before the shooting, which was on Facebook, and he wrote this quote, I hope that I can be with apple Jack in
the afterlife. My life has no meaning without her. If there's no after life and she isn't real, then my life never really mattered anyway. Now. Apple Jack, for context, is a cartoon Pony, a character from My Little Pony Friendship is Magic Show. Okay, so you see, Brandon is what many people would call a bronie, part of a niche internet subculture of mostly adult male fans of the children's show.
Oh I've never heard of this bronie.
Yeah no, I'm pretty sure we talked about it before actually on the show.
Oh shit, Okay, well I've clearly forgotten.
Clearly now, Brandon's obsession with My Little Pony may have played a very heavy role in this story, potentially with his disconnection from reality and the depths that he dove into this show's world. But unfortunately it's not something we really know much about. What we do know is that
this post was weird, sad, and rather confusing. I mean, he's talking about saying that if this cartoon character doesn't exist in the afterlife, his life never meant anything, and he's hoping to spend his afterlife with this cartoon character. There's a lot wrong psychologically with that.
Okay, this the show is meant for kids or whatever, right, it's a kid's show. But for some reason, there's just like a draw to some there's something.
There's a lot of.
I could google this on the side.
No, it's all good. It's all good. A lot of this bronie culture, let's put it that way. Not all, but there's a lot within this culture that have sexualized the show.
Oh shit, okay, gross.
Yeah, I'm not saying Brandon did. I mean, he definitely had some heartfelt attachment to the character apple Jack, for sure, but there is some connotations with the word bronie and sexualization of my little pony.
Oh fuck, Okay, I wish I.
Didn't ask Oka sorry, which, honestly, it does make it we understand it a little bit more knowing that. I mean, he's in his mind, he's doing this to try and get himself killed so he can he can spend time with the one he loves, probably the only one he loves. Yeah, so it is exactly what I just said. Weird, sad and confusing.
Yeah, I know, I don't know what the hell to say to this, So I'm yup.
Now. Eight lives ended that night when Brandon opened fire at the FedEx facility. Eight families were left with a hole that they will never be able to fill. For some of the victims, they had just started their jobs. Others had been there for years. They were parents, teenagers, veterans, friends. For many of them, FedEx wasn't just a job. It was a stepping stone, a means to support their family, or routine that kept them going. Matthew Alexander was thirty
two years old. He was a sports lover and a loyal friend. Matt had been with FedEx for nearly a decade. He loved road tripping to baseball games, collecting babble heads, and handing out baseball cards to his buddies, always picking out their favorite players.
Right.
He just bought a house in the suburbs and was finally feeling settled when he was killed.
Oh gosh, this is okay. We're going through all the victims, aren't we. This is going to destroy us.
Samaria Blackwell was nineteen years old, the youngest of four siblings. Samaria was athletic, full of drive, and deeply kind. She played soccer, worked as a lifeguard, and wanted to become a police officer one day. Her parents described her as someone who naturally connected with older people, quietly, respectful, and full of heart. Carly Smith was also nineteen. She was bubbly, outgoing and known for making people laugh. Carly had only
recently started working at FedEx. She was saving up for her first car, studying for her driver's license, and planning to start community college. She played softball in high school and shared a close bond with her mom and siblings. They had dinner together every night. John Weissert was seventy four years old. He was a retired Air Force veteran and mechanical engineer. John had taken a part time job at FedEx just to make ends meet. His wife had
been urging him to retire. He was hunched and slowing down, but he kept showing up. He was soft spoken, played guitar, loved old movies, and carried a quiet sense of duty until the end. Amarjite Kuar Jahal was sixty six. She had clocked out early that night just so she could make it home to celebrate her granddaughter's birthday. Amarjite was a grandmother, a cook, a caretaker, and a beloved presence in her Sikh community. She made legendary bean dip and
attended temple every weekend. Her family begged her to stop working, but she insisted on on contributing. Jiswinder Singh was sixty eight. He just started at FedEx and was excited to collect his first paycheck. Known for his gentle nature and devotion to temple service, Joswinder lived nearby and volunteered daily in the Sikh community kitchen. His life was rooted in prayer, humility, and helping others. Amarjit Sekhon was forty eight, a single
mom of two teenage sons. Amarjit had moved from Ohio to be closer to family and had taken the night shift at FedEx to support her kids. Her niece described her as a sweet soul who was the glue of their family and she never missed a weekend at temple visits. Just Vender Kuar fifty. Just Vender was always thinking of others, especially her sons. Back in India, She was preparing to help celebrate her granddaughter's birthday when she was killed. Her
family remembers her yogurt recipes and her quiet strength. She'd been planning to get her drivers license so she could be more independent. The shooting took less than four minutes. These were people, not statistics, and they deserved much more than what they got in the end. In the hours that followed the incident, the parking lot of the FedEx facility turned into a scene we've come to know all too well. Flashing lights, news cameras, Families huddled together waiting
for word. Some were reunited, while others got the call that no one should ever have to take.
Oh gosh.
FedEx created a relief fund and pledged one million dollars to support the victims and families, but questions hung heavy in the air about security, about policies, about how they even got there in the first place. The company came under fire for its no phone policy. See in many areas, they were not allowed to have their cell phones and their persons while they were working on the floor. It presents both a distractional safety hazard and a production issue.
This policy, though, left many employees without a way to call for help when the shooting had started. Families couldn't reach their loved ones inside the warehouse, People hit under equipment, and they were completely cut off. That policy is still being debated. I actually kind of understand this policy. I've worked in places where there was no phone policies on the floor, and I totally get it. Yeah, you're not
expecting a shooter in the workplace, right. Perhaps there could be, you know, situations where emergency personnel do need to be called. But that's why supervisors are allowed to call or to carry their phones for emergency personnel. So I totally understand it, but I also do understand why it's debated.
Yeah, I mean, I guess it kind of it isolates you slightly, right it does.
But the problem is, like you're there for work, right in an emergency situation, having everyone on a phone could clog up emergency phone lines, right, it can make things worse in all honesty.
Well, and in some workplaces like it can cause danger too if people distracted on their phone, right, So it is like a safety thing too.
It is a massive safety thing now in this connotation, if someone is on the phone with the loved one in these you know, potentially last minutes of their life. Yeah, of course we want them to have it, but that's not what workplaces are where this is happening. Yeah, yeah, so I totally understand, but I do also understand the debate. But I do have to say I firmly agree with the no cell phones on the floor. I really do. You should have certain personnel with phones with accessibility to call,
being supervisors, managers, that sort of thing. But I Digress investigators. They combed through Brandon's computer, they comb through his phone, his search history, and yes, because I mentioned there was Nazi and World War II content less than two hundred files of the one hundred and seventy five thousand reviewed. But there was no evidence of bias or hate driven ideology in what he'd done. It wasn't enough to suggest a motive. But looking back, it's not like there weren't
obvious signs of things to come. There was this individual who was on the radar for over a year before FedEx shooting occurred. His mother warned police in March of twenty twenty. He was talking about suicide by cop. Remember that.
Yeah, he just.
Bought a shotgun. He hit her when she questioned him, and when police arrived, he begged them to turn off his computer and not look what was on there.
Oh my gosh, that yeah, right there.
But the thing is they still saw some things on his computer, white supremacist websites, Nazi content, There was violent talk. There was a lot of My Little Pony too, which I mean doesn't necessarily fit in, but it was there. So you have questionable content in a computer. You have a violent individual who's confessing to suicide by comp and just purchased a shotgun. You think this meets all the criteria for an individual who's going to go on and do something like a mass shooting.
Yeah, I mean I guess the signs were there, but also was there enough?
You know, I think there was definitely enough. But we'll get into a little bit here because that whole like red flag law, Yeah, it may not be as perfect as people think. Okay, So the police took him under Indiana's immediate detention law and the shotgun was confiscated. He was held for a psychiatric evaluation and then released, although that psychiatric evaluation was not a very full one.
Okay. I'm like, yeah, how to what extent did they do that? Because you think they would have found something there?
Well, as I mentioned, it was only two hours he was.
Held, right, Yeah.
Now, the FBI followed up in April of twenty twenty, questioning him, but they closed the case. No criminal charges, no diagnosis, required commitment or anything. And critically that red flag petition filed. There was nothing, nothing was filed with that red flag law. That was the moment Indian as red flag law gave authorities fourteen days to ask the
judge to bar him from buying more guns, and they didn't. Now, according to prosecutors, they believed taking the shotgun was enough, and since the family didn't ask for it back, they figured that the issue was resolved.
You know, yes, but I don't think something like that resolves that quickly either, right.
You're right, you're right, because clearly it wasn't. Now Brandon legally bought those two AR fifteen style rifles later that summer. Because this sort of stuff didn't go through the system. Right, all of this happened in the open without that system, sorry, with the system that was supposedly designed to stop it from occurring. The law existed, the warning was there, The chance to intervene was real and reachable, but it slipped.
Now.
After the shooting, Marion County Prosecutor Ryan Meures faced heavy criticism. The Fraternal Order of Police accused him of sidestepping the process. Mears, however, for his part, said the red flag law had too many holes to be effective, which is why it was not implemented in this situation. Because if they had taken Brandon to court saying that he's too dangerous and should be barred from purchasing rifles. If they lost the case, guess what what they'd have to give him the shotgun back?
Oh shit? Really yeah, and like, okay, I'm assuming too he can probably be present in there. Oh yeah, defending himself or whatnot.
Right, Yeah, this is a legal proceeding. Yeah, okay, So now we understand why they didn't proceed with this red flag law and try and get them barred. Yeah, because it's two sides of the corner, and is either he gets all the fucking guns he wants now or huh, you know, we hope it's resolved and we.
Take the one that he has at the moment exactly. Oh that is really tough. Ah.
So they didn't even try.
Oh I don't love that at all.
So it wasn't just a single missed opportunity. It was a chain of events that led to this. With my safety background, we call this the Swiss cheese effect, because you line up a bunch of pieces of Swiss cheese all with the holes in them, and eventually you line them up long enough, there's going to be a hole leading right through all of them and stuff falls through. Now, by the time anyone realized how fragile that chain was
or in my case, the Swiss cheese pile was effect. Yeah, eight people were dead, gosh, And that weekend Indianapolis grieved hard. There were candlelight vigils at city parks, Prayers prayer circle were happening outside Seek temples for the four murdered members of the Sikh community who work there. Family members stood in front of microphones struggling to put their pain into words.
And honestly, in the Sek community there was it was hard not to feel targeted for it to be racial, because you have this racial content found in his computer. He worked there before. There's a heavy Seak community working at this place. So though it's not official that they say it was a racial driven situation, it's hard not to feel that it may have been.
It's it definitely like, yeah, it crossed my mind for sure.
Yeah.
Mayor Joe Hoagsitt called it a quote scourge of gun violence. Community leaders said enough was enough, and President Joe Biden at the time ordered a flags to be flown half mass, calling the shooting the country's repeated failure to stop this kind of violence quote a national embarrassment.
Okay, I just have a slight question here. This eight people dead, is that including him or or does that make it nine?
No, that's eight people murdered.
Sorry, Okay, I wasn't certain. Okay, damn So he was and half of them are from that one community.
Correct, Yeah, so he would be the ninth dead. So you have eight murdered, one self deleted, and several injured.
Yes, I would imagine.
Now, one speaker at this about this said basically what a lot of people were thinking. Quote, you're not wondering if there will be another math shooting, You're wondering when. Yep, because this is a very well known thing at this point that in the United States of America there is an epidemic in regards to mass shootings occurring. In fact, there's memes about it occurring in schools and stuff you can find on like Instagram and the Internet all over the place.
Yeah, it's so, it's really fucked up, actually it is. Now.
In the weeks that followed the shooting in Indianapolis was quiet. It felt very different. There was grief, yes, but also in the sense of a collective exhaustion. Another mass shooting in America, another round of funerals, another group of families that were shattered, people started asking what now, what can actually change the seat. Community still in mourning leaned in tradition. Temples held daily prayer services. Community kitchens served meals to
anyone who walked in. It was part of healing, part protest, as well an active resilience in the face of fear. At Arsenal Park, eight trees were planted in memory of the victims, one for each life that was lost. Politicians offered condolences, some offered more than others. Democrats in the state House. They pushed for stronger red flag legislations, hoping to close the very gap that let Brandon buy those guns in the first place, but it stalled and the
session ended before an thing passed. In April of twenty twenty three, two years after the shooting, some of the victim's families filed a lawsuit against the US distributor and German manufacture of high capacity magazines used in the shooting. They wanted someone, anyone, to be held accountable. If the system wouldn't change through laws, maybe it could change through the courts. Meanwhile, people kept showing up to vigils, They kept sharing stories. Some just needed to say their loved
one's names out loud again. Others needed to make sure that no one was forgotten. The FedEx shooting in Indianapolis wasn't just another entry in a long list of American mass shootings. In fact, each shooting has its own tragic tale that needs to be looked at much closer, and in this case, it's the story of a young man spiraling alone, a family, asking for help, and getting lost in the system, and also a red flag law that looked good on paper but fell flat when it mattered.
Most Like most things in today's modern world, laws, procedures, and legislations are great in theory, but it's only ever on paper. Practical real world situations work much differently. This incident wasn't about ideology. It wasn't about revenge. It wasn't about the hate that was in someone, at least not in the traditional sense. It was something much harder to define, a need to feel power, a desire even to die, but not quietly. The FBI called it a suicidal murder.
The shooter wanted to prove something about masculinity or strength, about the ability to take lives before ending their own. That's what makes this case so frustrating. It didn't fit the usual mold that we're used to. There's no manifesto, no list of enemies, or grand justification, just silence, planning, and calm leading up to chaos. But that doesn't mean the red flags weren't there. His mother saw it, the police saw it, even he somehow seemed to know something
was broken, but still nothing stopped him. And that's the worst part, because for every high profile shooting case that dominates headlines, there are dozens more that are just close calls, people in crisis, families asking for help, and systems not listening. This story, as brutal and senseless as it was, it's a glaring reminder of the truth. It's not always about politics. Sometimes it's about what happens when nobody is willing to connect the dots, something we have talked about time and
time again on this show, due diligence. It's a lack of caring and turning a blind eye even when all the signs are there. Now, I want to end today's episode with a quote from Brandon's mother, Sheila Hole, spoke candidly and emotionally about her son's mental health, her attempts to intervene in the grief and horror she felt after
the shooting. During the interview, she recalled how she begged authorities to take his threats seriously more than a year before the attack occurred, especially after he told her you want to provoke police into killing him. After that tragedy, she expressed profound remorse and sorrow, not primarily for her son, but more for the victims. To quote her quote, I'll mourn the victims more than I'll mourn him, damn. And that's the story of the FedEx shooting.
I was wondering, like I had thought about the mother too. I'm like, this probably just completely destroyed her.
Really, yeah, I imagine so.
Because yeah, she did try. And like, oh man, oh man, this one is horrible because I hate I mean, any death is like terrible and and stuff, right, but to lose a loved one, I feel like in this sort of way, so unexpectedly, and you know a lot of them had so much more life to live and stuff, and I just think, yeah, that would not be easy because there was literally no reason for this to happen.
Not at all. I mean, in situations you can point to, you know, natural disasters or something happening, a failure and a mechanical device that causes you know, a car to convene off, veer off a road or or something. There's reasons, there's explanations, there's something to point to. The only thing we have to point to is a person. But there is zero why and that hurts so much.
Yeah, and a system that kind of failed to right, so it would make you more angry really.
But that one though, is again we don't have a why from the system. We just have excuses from a system. Yeah, because it's not like that red flag policy or the red flag law or whatever has been fixed since it's still just sitting there.
Yeah, you know, it's so fucked up to that, Like someone is struggling and they they go and take you know, here in this instant eight other people's lives with them, Like holy shit, Yeah it is. It's just not okay.
It's really not all to prove something to themselves that they think proved something to other people about masculinity or independence or power. It proves nothing.
But in the end, does it act you know, like before he took his own life, did he prove anything to himself? Probably not really.
Delusionally, I bet you he did. I bet you he felt something. Whether that was a delusion or whether it was reality. I mean, I'm heavily leaning on the side of delusion, but I could see it being up for debate. But I digress. I'm sure he felt something of proof of his concept that he is going out and seeking. He's saying, I'm gonna do this, so I can, you know, have this ability above you and I like I killed you. I'm stronger than you, I have more power than you.
You're running away from me in fear, you know.
Yeah? Yeah, And the thing is too how long he went about planning it, right, So it's like very very premeditated. Oh yeah, which also, like everything just makes it worse, really, it just makes it harder process and shittier feeling.
I just really hope that something can be figured out soon in regards to these mass shootings. I mean, governments really need to be taking things seriously and obviously like they are to many degrees. Could you have this red flag law being put in place now? Is it faulty? Sure, it's a new law, but they are putting legislation in place. Does more need to be done, yes, yeah, but there is some attempts at.
And it's not fully a United States issue, like we get we have them here too, there was one not that long ago, and gosh yeah, I mean, but it's also hard because I think you can do you can do certain things, but I also think, yeah, if there's a will, there's a way, and if someone really wants to do this, they're going to figure it out, I guess, right, which is horrible.
Yeah, like you said, when there's a will, there's a way, it's right, It's very true, and it's unfortunate. Anyways, that was a heavy episode. I don't really like covering mass shootings all that much generally because people who do it, they're looking for that attention. But I also do think it's a topic that we really need to discuss because
it's something that it takes so many lives. There's a lot of people who need help, who can commit these crimes, and you know what, something needs to be done well.
And we didn't even touch on the fact that the people that had to show up that night, like the first responders, holy shit, Yeah, the scene that they're walking into definitely, you know, oh goshfect it just like the list of people that this incident affected is huge.
Yeah, first responders, the.
Communities like the city that you know.
Frick Yeah, it's a spider web. It just goes out from there. Anyways, Thank you for being here. Don't forget to check out the description in this podcast for more more links and stuff. We have another podcast, did you know that. It's called Fearful. You can go and listen to it. It covers some spooky things, historical, paranormal, that sort of stuff. Check it out. Also check out the other links. We appreciate review or an independent podcast myself Nicole.
It's us, no one else owns it. We do the research, the writing, the talking, the editing, the uploading, the social media what else, patroon, Patreon, all the social media, we do, all the things. It's us and only us, So we appreciate all the support and thank you for being here. And until next time, stay wicked.