The families of five victims of the mass shooting at a FedEx facility last year are suing FedEx for negligence, as security officers on the premises were unarmed, the lawsuit claims.
On April 15, 2021, 19-year-old Brandon Scott Hole, a former employee at the FedEx facility in Indianapolis, shot and killed eight workers and injured five more before killing himself. This was the second mass shooting at a FedEx facility.
The families of Amarjeet Johal, Amarjit Sekhon, Jasvinder Kaur, John Weisert, and Karli Smith, five of the eight victims, are now suing FedEx almost a year after the incident for general negligence and failing to keep the employees and the premises safe before and during the incident.
The suit points out that security guard officers, provided by Securitas Security Services, USA, were unarmed before and during the incident last April.
"At the time of the April 15, 2021 shooting and prior thereto, Defendant Securitas provided unarmed security guard services to the Mirabel Road FedEx Ground Package facility," the lawsuit claims.
Besides Securitas, the lawsuit filing names FedEx Corporation, FedEx Ground Package System, Inc., Federal Express Corporation and FedEx Corporate Services, Inc.
Attorneys Mel Hewitt of Atlanta and Dan Chamberlain of Indianapolis are two attorneys representing the families. According to CBS4, they said that each of the victims was not officially on duty during the shooting. They had either clocked out for the day or had just arrived for the night shift.
The lawsuit claims that Hole, who had recently been fired from his job at the facility, attempted to enter the building and "created a disruption." He was denied entrance to the building, to which he went back to his car and returned "armed with an automatic or semiautomatic rifle and began randomly firing at individuals in the parking area."
The lawsuit said he then entered the building, continuing to shoot at random before turning the gun on himself.
Chamberlain and Hewitt pointed out that another shooting at a FedEx Ground facility took place in 2014 in Georgia, in which six were shot and none were killed.
"So FedEx has been put on notice that frankly this is something that is preventable," Chamberlain said according to CBS4. "Had they followed their own policies and procedures, this would never have occurred."
In January of this year, the city of Indianapolis denied a compensation request of $2.1 million in damages from two victims and one victim's family member after they said the city could have prevented the shooting.
According to CBS4, Chamberlain said that the three other victims' families are welcome to join the lawsuit as well.
"If people want to join the lawsuit, they're invited to join with us and work together. It just makes sense," Chamberlain said.
Newsweek reached out to Mel Hewitt and Dan Chamberlain's offices as well as FedEx for comment.
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