Indianapolis: Three members of the Sikh community affected by a mass shooting at an Indianapolis FedEx facility in April are seeking compensation of $700,000 each from the city. They claim that local officials failed to pursue a court hearing that could have prevented the shooter from accessing guns used in the attack.
The “red flag” legislation allows police in Indiana or the courts to seize guns from people who show signs that they might be violent.
Harpreet Singh, Lakhwinder Kaur, and Gurinder Bains, were injured or lost family members in the April 15 attack. Lawyers for the victims said the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department and the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office failed to follow Indiana’s red flag law when they decided not to file a case with the courts to suspend the shooter’s gun rights in March of 2020.
The victims are being represented by Amandeep S. Sidhu of the Washington, D.C., law firm Winston & Strawn LLP. The Sikh Coalition is acting as co-counsel.
19-year-old Brandon Scott Hole, a former FedEx employee, used the attack as an act of “suicidal murder” in which eight employees, including four members of the city’s Sikh American community, were killed and five others were injured.
He was able to legally purchase the two rifles used in the shooting, even after his mother called police in March of 2020 to say her son might attempt “suicide by cop.” Police seized a pump-action shotgun from Hole, then 18, when responding to his mother’s call.
