Police search for motive after gunman kills eight at Indianapolis FedEx site

Authorities said on Friday that it was still too early to know what motivated a gunman who killed eight employees at a FedEx facility in Indianapolis and wounded several others before taking his own life.

The shooting – the latest in a spate of mass shootings across the United States – unfolded at a FedEx operations center near the Indianapolis International Airport after 11 p.m. local time on Thursday night, police said.

The incident, which lasted only a couple of minutes, was already over by the time police responded to the scene, Craig McCartt, the Indianapolis police department’s deputy chief, told a news briefing on Friday.

Witnesses described a chaotic attack, as the gunman opened fire in the parking lot before entering the facility and continuing to shoot, leaving victims both inside and outside the building. Officers found the suspect dead of an apparent self-inflicted gunshot wound.

FBI Indianapolis Special Agent in Charge Paul Keenan said it would be “premature to speculate” on the gunman’s motive. Authorities have not yet publicly named the suspect or any victims, though Keenan said investigators were searching the suspect’s home.

The massacre is the most recent in a series of U.S. mass shootings that has again pushed the issue of gun violence to the political foreground.

Indianapolis alone has seen two mass shootings this year, including a January incident in which police say a teenager shot and killed four family members and a pregnant woman.

President Joe Biden, in a statement, said he had ordered flags lowered and reiterated his call for Congress to pass gun restrictions.

“Too many Americans are dying every single day from gun violence,” he said. “It stains our character and pierces the very soul of our nation. We can, and must, do more to act and to save lives.”

Earlier this month, Biden announced limited measures to tackle gun violence that included a crackdown on self-assembled “ghost guns.” But more stringent measures face an uphill battle in a divided Congress, where Republican lawmakers have long opposed any new gun limits.

Nearly 20,000 Americans died last year as a result of gun violence, not including suicide – 25% higher than in 2019, and more than in any other year in at least two decades, according to figures compiled by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.