Killing of 8 at FedEx Site Not Hate Crime

From the Wall Street Journal, Thursday, 7/29/2021

 

  The gunman who killed eight people at a FedEx Corp. facility in Indianapolis in April was likely not motivated by bias or racism, investigators said.

  Investigators interviewed more than a hundred people, executed more than 20 search warrants and combed through 175,00 computer files belonging to the shooter for months before determining the shooting wasn't a hate crime. "The shooter did not appear to have been motivated by bias or a desire to advance and ideology," said Paul Keenan, the Indianapolis FBI's special agent in charge at a Wednesday press conference.

  Nineteen-year-old Brandon Scott Hole, who was white, killed eight people, including at least four members of the Sikh community.

  The Indianapolis shooter sought to prove his masculinity to himself by experiencing what it was like to kill other people and then die by suicide, investigators determined. He targeted the FedEx facility because he had been employed there and knew the location and work patterns.

                                               --------Ben Kesling

Is this for real? The nation's most high profile law enforcement agency spent months interviewing over a hundred people, using search warrants and peering through thousands of computer files to see if a wacko was under the influence of hatred or racism when he "went postal" at his former place of employment and committed suicide? But hatred and racism hadn't been a part of the mass murder, they say. We can rest easy.

But what if it had? Would Hole have been dug up and buried deeper? Or re-cremated at a higher temperature?

Historically, in fact and in fiction, determining a motive for a serious crime, especially murder, has been a part of the investigative process, to find the murderer. It's a major part of practically all crime novels. But that's the case when the perpetrator is unknown. When he's dead at the scene, what's the point, if there can even be one?

Well, O.K., one of the deceased may have refused to repay a loan or made a serious pass at Hole's girlfriend. Maybe that drove him to multiple murder and suicide. Or is this an instance of the usual legal quest for "closure" that allows the survivors to move on with their lives. 

Even more likely is that a long, drawn-out investigation of a dead murderer is a good way to occupy under-worked FBI personnel with zero chance of failure. Their conclusions about the motive for the crime are actually only opinions, after all, and won't be refuted in a courtroom. It's a win-win for the G-Men.

 

Brandon Scott Hole                        nydailynews.com