Four Sikhs among those killed in Indianapolis FedEx carnage

WASHINGTON: Four members of the Sikh community are among those who killed in the mass shooting at the FedEx facility in Indianapolis on Thursday night by a gunman identified as 19-year old Caucasian youth Brandon Scott Hole.
The four Sikh victims are Amarjeet Johal, 66; Jaswinder Kaur, 64; Jaswinder Singh, 68; Amarjit Skhon, 48. The four other victims are Matthew R. Alexander, 32; Samaria Blackwell, 19;Karlie Smith, 19; and 74-year-old John Weisert.
Hole was a former employee of the FedEx facility that employed a large number of Sikh workers and he was already on the FBI radar, although authorities said he had "no racially motivated violent extremism ideology" when they interviewed him in 2020.
A body is taken from the scene where multiple people were shot at a FedEx Ground facility in Indianapolis (AP)
“In March 2020, the suspect’s mother contacted law enforcement to report he might try to commit 'suicide by cop'. The suspect was placed on an immediate detention mental health temporary hold by the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department," FBI Indianapolis Special Agent in Charge Paul Keenan was quoted telling the local media.
The Sikh community too refrained from jumping to any conclusion about the carnage being a hate crime, with a spokesman for the Sikh Coalition saying authorities were still trying to determine whether Hole was targeting workers because of their religious belief.

"We are deeply saddened to learn that Sikh community members are among those injured and killed by the gunman in Indianapolis last night," coalition Executive Director Satjeet Kaur said in a statement, adding, "while we don’t yet know the motive or identity of the shooter, we expect that authorities will continue to conduct a full investigation -- including the possibility of bias as a factor.”
Apprehensions about the attack being a hate crime follows the killing of six Asian-Americans among with people shot dead by a gunman who targeted massage parlors and spas in the Atlanta area last month.
Scarred by the 2012 Oak Creek Shooting in which seven Sikhs were killed in an attack on a gurdwara in Wisconsin, the Sikh community in the US has stepped up its outreach to Americans with community service and educating the general population about the Sikh faith. Sikh organisations in the U.S are often first in service in the aftermath of natural calamities.
Authorities have not yet released the identity of those killed, but Sikh activists tweeted that one of them was a female worker who had dropped into the facility on her off-day to pick up her paycheck, and she was found shot dead with the paycheck still in her hand.