At least eight people have been shot dead at a FedEx facility in Indianapolis and the suspected gunman has killed himself, police say.
Multiple other people were injured and went to local hospitals, a police spokesperson, Genae Cook, said at an early morning news conference on Friday.
At least four people were admitted to hospital, including one with critical injuries. Two others were treated at the scene and released. No law enforcement officers were injured.
“We’re still trying to ascertain the exact reason and cause for this incident,” Cook said.
“We’re working as quickly as we can,” the Indianapolis deputy chief of investigations, Craig McCartt, said on CBS This Morning on Friday. “We’re working with families. We have a reunification center right now that’s up and running at a nearby hotel.”
Some family members said employees at the FedEx facility were not allowed to keep their phones with them while working, making it difficult to contact them.
Live video from local news outlets at the scene showed crime scene tape in the car park outside the facility.
A witness, who said he worked at the facility, told WISH-TV that he saw a man with a gun after hearing several gunshots. “I saw a man with a submachine gun of some sort, an automatic rifle, and he was firing in the open,” Jeremiah Miller said.
Another worker at the FedEx facility told local news station WRTV that at first, “two loud metal clangs” rang out at the facility, adding: “They didn’t sound like gunshots at first.
“Somebody went behind their car to the trunk and then got another gun, then I saw one body on the floor,” the worker said.
Another man told WTTV that his niece was sitting in the driver’s seat of her car 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.
IMPD says 8 people have died and multiple others were injured in the mass shooting at the FedEx facility in Indy. pic.twitter.com/CwVCqEhmyn
— WRTV Indianapolis (@wrtv) April 16, 2021
“This morning, Indianapolis residents are confronted with the horrific news of yet another mass shooting, an act of violence that senselessly claimed the lives of eight of our neighbors,” the Indianapolis mayor, Joe Hogsett, said on Twitter.
FedEx said: “We are aware of the tragic shooting at our FedEx Ground facility near the Indianapolis airport. Safety is our top priority, and our thoughts are with all those who are affected. We are working to gather more information and are cooperating with investigating authorities.”
The shooting was the latest in a string of mass killings across the US in recent months. After a significant drop in mass shootings during a pandemic-hit 2020, the Gun Violence Archive says 147 mass shootings have occurred so far in 2021. Their definition of mass shooting is a minimum of four gunshot victims.
Eight people were fatally shot at massage businesses across metro Atlanta, and 10 died in gunfire at a supermarket in Boulder, Colorado, last month.
This was at least the third mass shooting this year in Indianapolis. 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 an argument at a home in March.
Joe Biden last week announced a half-dozen executive actions to combat what he called an “epidemic and an international embarrassment” of gun violence in America, but he said much more was needed.