The former FedEx worker who shot dead eight people at a facility in Indianapolis bought the weapons used in the attack legally, according to police – even though cops had seized his previous gun due to concerns about his mental health.
Brandon Scott Hole, 19, purchased the two semiautomatic rifles used to carry out the Thursday night massacre in July and September of 2020, Indianapolis police said Saturday.
A shotgun belonging to Hole was seized in March 2020 after his mother told police she feared her son might commit “suicide by cop,” according to the FBI.
But despite the warning, Hole was not subject to Indiana’s so-called “red-flag” law, which allows a judge to bar anyone presenting a dangerous risk from owning a firearm, Indianapolis Police Chief Randal Taylor told The New York Times.
Under the law, authorities in the state have two weeks from seizing a weapon to make a case before a judge for barring a person deemed unstable from possessing a gun.
However, Chief Taylor told the paper that he was unsure whether such a hearing ever took place – even though Hole’s confiscated shotgun was never returned.
“I don’t know how we held onto it,” he said in an interview Saturday night. “But it’s good that we did.”
Yet the fact that Hole, who killed himself after the massacre, was able to buy two assault rifles just months later suggests that a red-flag determination was never made, Taylor said.