Finalist: Tony Cook, Johnny Magdaleno and Michelle Pemberton of The Indianapolis Star

By Tony Cook and Johnny Magdaleno

Police came upon a troubling scene when they responded to a disturbance at Jill Phipps' residence on June 21, 2020. 

What they witnessed was her husband in his underwear, chasing her with his fists clenched and yelling at her. 

They also found redness on her neck and lip. 

She wouldn't say if her husband had assaulted her. But she did tell police that he retrieved a .45 caliber handgun from the basement and threatened to kill himself or anyone who tried to stop him.

That was all police needed to seize the gun from her husband — a power granted to authorities under Indiana’s red flag law.

Officers took Jason Phipps, who police said was “drunk and disruptive,” to Eskenazi hospital for a psychological evaluation. He was released the following day.

Under the law, police and prosecutors should have told a judge about the incident. That would have led to a court hearing within 14 days of the seizure. 

At that hearing, an Indianapolis police detective could have taken the stand, spent a couple minutes testifying — and that’s it. That’s all a judge would have needed to decide if Phipps should be barred from purchasing or possessing a gun for at least six months. 

None of that happened. 

Seventeen days after the seizure, Phipps’ parents, Brenda and Thomas Limbach, received a phone call at 4:30 in the morning. It was their 16-year-old granddaughter — Jill Phipps’ daughter. 

The first words she said were the last words they expected.

“Dad shot mom.”

It was Jill Phipps’ teenage daughters — not police — who wrested the shotgun from their father’s hands after the shooting, according to a police report. By then, their mother was already dead.

Red flag failures

State leaders have touted Indiana’s red flag law, among the first of its kind in the nation, as a common sense measure for preventing gun violence. They say red flag laws balance public safety with the rights of firearm owners because they allow authorities to temporarily suspend someone’s Second Amendment rights if they believe a life is in danger.

But IndyStar found that a gap in the law and poor execution by police and prosecutors have undermined its effectiveness, especially in Marion County. The results, too often, have been tragic.

In all, IndyStar identified at least 14 deaths and eight gunshot injuries that the red flag law failed to prevent in Indianapolis over the past five years.

In one case, police took a paranoid and delusional woman's gun not once, but twice. She soon purchased a third handgun — a Ruger .380 — and shot her neighbor in the back, piercing his lung.

In another case, police seized a gun from a man they said had fired a shot after shouting "(expletive) the police" at officers. He obtained another and is now accused of shooting a 13-year-old in the hand. 

And, of course, there is the case of the 19-year-old who committed the deadliest mass shooting in the city's history at a FedEx facility in April before killing himself. Police had seized a shotgun from him a year earlier, but as in the case of Jason Phipps, prosecutors never filed a red flag case that could have prevented him from accessing additional weapons.

Those were not the only cases police and prosecutors in Indianapolis failed to follow up on. 

For nearly two years, Marion County Prosecutor Ryan Mears and his deputies chose not to file more than 100 red flag cases that legal experts — including the judge who oversees such cases — say they were required to file. Even when cases were filed, prosecutors allowed them to linger for months or years.

And that doesn't include incidents where police never seized a weapon, though they could have.

For example, police didn't bother to seize the gun of a man with a history of gun crimes who was accused of shooting up the car of his child’s mother and fleeing in May 2020. 

Less than a year later he would shoot and kill four people, including a 7-year-old girl, inside an east-side home on Randolph Street, according to police.

It was the second mass shooting of the year — and the second one that might have been prevented if only the red flag law had been employed.

Police and prosecutors in Marion County aren't the only ones who have played a role in the law's failure.

While Indianapolis grapples with record breaking homicides and more mass murders this year than any other city in America, lawmakers at the Indiana Statehouse have refused to make changes to the red flag law that local officials say are badly needed. 

IndyStar found that the state has repeatedly ignored warnings — including one from the FBI — that the law doesn't stop potentially dangerous people from legally purchasing more guns while their red flag case is pending.

So police and prosecutors can take every step possible under the law — seize a gun and file a case — and still fail to prevent predictable tragedies.

How the law is supposed to work

To understand the failures, it's important to understand how the law is supposed to work.

Indiana became the second state in the nation to enact such a law in 2005 after an Indianapolis police officer, Jake Laird, was shot and killed. Police had previously taken eight guns from the shooter, who had schizophrenia. Without any legal authority to keep them, police gave them back.

Lawmakers responded to the tragedy by passing the Jake Laird Law. It allows police to immediately seize firearms from a person they believe poses a risk of injury to themselves or others. They don't need a warrant.

But to ensure such confiscations are not haphazard, officers are required to file an affidavit with the court explaining why they believe the person is dangerous. In an effort to further protect gun owners, lawmakers in 2019 added a 48-hour deadline for those affidavits to be filed.

After the affidavit is filed, a judge must set a hearing for as close as possible to 14 days later. The person whose guns were taken has the opportunity at that hearing to testify or present evidence to show they are not dangerous. Prosecutors can call police or other witnesses and can present evidence that shows the person is a danger. 

The judge then makes a decision. If the person is dangerous, law enforcement can keep the seized weapons. As of the 2019 changes, the person is also prohibited from purchasing or possessing a gun. The person's name is sent to the FBI's criminal background check system used by gun retailers. 

Indiana's law became a national model in 2018 after a school shooting in Parkland, Florida, left 17 people dead, despite numerous prior warning signs that the shooter was dangerous. At that time, only five states had red flag laws. Now, 19 states and the District of Columbia have some version of the law.

Although such laws have typically been enacted in response to homicides or mass murders, their effectiveness in preventing shootings is not completely clear. Studies of Indiana's law have found it is effective at preventing suicides. Less research has been done on its impact on homicides.

It was after the shootings at Parkland and a Noblesville middle school that Indiana lawmakers gave the state's red flag law more teeth in 2019.

Still, the change didn't go as far as some wanted. 

‘They don’t have a flag on me’

The FedEx shooting shined a spotlight on how Marion County prosecutors failed to bring the full power of the red flag law against the killer more than a year before the shooting.

In March 2020, his mom told police he had bought a shotgun and was suicidal. She also told police he had hit her and threatened to point the gun at police so they would shoot him.

Police seized the shotgun from him, but prosecutors never brought the case to court. As a result, he could still legally purchase guns. 

That's just what he did. 

Over the next few months he purchased two AR 15-style rifles. As he left a store with one of those rifles, he smiled and said to his mother: "They don't have a flag on me."

On April 15, he turned those guns on innocent workers at a FedEx facility in southwest Indianapolis. He killed eight people — teenagers, retirees who returned to work, a mother of two, employees collecting their paychecks — and injured at least five others. 

Amid the keys, purses and lunchboxes strewn across the scene, police recovered the two rifles. 

The failure to pursue a red flag case drew criticism from the local police union president to the halls of Congress. "In Indianapolis, had it been used, I think it could have saved those eight lives," Democratic Sen. Dick Durbin of Illinois said during a U.S. Senate subcommittee hearing on red flag laws in April.

‘We’d already achieved our objective’

In the days after the shooting, Mears, the Marion County prosecutor, held a news conference defending his office's decision. 

He said they never took the case to court because the shooter told authorities they could keep the shotgun. "We'd already achieved our objective," he said, "which was to prevent that firearm from going back to this particular individual."

He also said that the law's 14-day deadline doesn't give prosecutors enough time to gather medical records and other evidence they could use to prove a person is dangerous. And because the law doesn't prevent people from obtaining firearms while their red flag case is pending, the shooter may have been able to purchase more guns until a judge ruled on his case.

"I think people hear 'red flag' and they think it's the panacea to all these issues," Mears said. "It's not."

But the importance he placed on the shooter's medical records was overstated.

The red flag law actually doesn't require the involvement of mental health issues. Rather, it says prosecutors must prove a person presents an "imminent risk of personal injury" to themselves or others.

Prosecutors can also show they pose a risk in the future either because they have a mental illness and are not taking medication, or because of "documented evidence" showing the person has a tendency of violent or suicidal conduct. 

In other words, while medical records may have helped, they were by no means necessary to stop the FedEx shooter from purchasing the rifles he used. 

In fact, IndyStar has observed dozens of red flag cases play out in court since the shooting. Many individuals are found dangerous with little more than a police officer's testimony. Medical records are rarely presented.

Still, if prosecutors feel medical records are necessary, they can seek what's called an expedited discovery order to obtain them in as few as five days. In neighboring Hamilton County, for example, prosecutors routinely request and are granted these orders.

Mears' other explanations also fall flat.

It's true that people can still legally purchase guns while their red flag case is pending, but that gap in the law would not have mattered if prosecutors had filed a case and pushed for a hearing within 14 days of the March 2020 seizure.  

That would have meant the shooter could have been barred from legally purchasing firearms as early as mid-March — months before he actually bought the rifles in July and September 2020. 

As for the prosecutor's claim that his office "achieved (its) objective" when police seized the shotgun, that is only half true. It ignores the fact that the shooter's ability to purchase weapons in the future also could have been restricted.

And that mattered on April 15.

‘They let us down’

Survivors and family members of those killed that day in the FedEx shooting question why prosecutors stopped short of using the full force of the law. 

Angela Hughley, a mother of five, was wounded when the shooter sprayed her car with bullets. IndyStar spoke with her briefly on a recent afternoon as she was arriving at her home from a therapy session. 

"I feel they let us down," she said. “I feel the state of Indiana is an accessory to murder." 

Mary Weisert’s husband, John “Steve” Weisert, was killed in the shooting. Now, she’s struggling to keep up their house, which has a leaking roof. 

“I just feel every day kind of like Dorothy in The Wizard of Oz," she said, "that I was knocked out by a tornado or something."

She doesn’t understand why the system failed.

“I don't think (the law) was used properly,” she said. “I mean, maybe it wasn't used at all, if he was able to buy a gun.”

In July, Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department and FBI officials held a meeting with victims and their families to share the final findings of their investigation into the shooting. Nobody from the Marion County Prosecutor's Office showed up, Weisert said. The absence was not lost on family members.

“People at the meeting in July were kind of upset with that prosecutor,” she said. “He did not show his face there and people were saying, ‘Where is he? Why isn’t he here?’”

A spokesman for Mears told IndyStar he didn't attend the meeting because there were no potential criminal charges involved.

Debbie Alexander lost her 32-year-old son, Matthew R. Alexander, in the shooting.

If police considered the shooter dangerous enough to seize his gun, why wouldn't authorities want to prevent him from buying weapons in the future, she said. 

“I think it's disheartening to know that we have these laws but they're not followed,” she said. “And because of that, it's ended up in tragedies, such as the FedEx shooting, where we lost our son.”

Her daughter, Michelle, wants everyone — lawmakers, law enforcement, prosecutors — to take a more human-centered approach to the issue of gun violence and mental health.

“When they get these cases, don't just view it as, oh, it's just another case. I’m gonna clear it, get it out of my way, move on with my day. They need to look at the people of the case. They are humans. And they deserve to have their case looked at completely, instead of just being quickly dismissed,” she said. “We have a life that deserves to be considered.”

Not just the FedEx shooting

The failure in the FedEx case was not an isolated one.

An IndyStar review of hundreds of IMPD gun seizures found that prior to the FedEx shooting, the gatekeepers of public safety — police and prosecutors — rarely followed through on red flag seizures in court.

IMPD confiscated guns from 168 people under the red flag law during the nearly two years between July 1, 2019, when the revised law went into effect, and April 15, 2021, the day of the FedEx shooting.

Police and prosecutors only took 61 of those cases to court. That’s roughly the same amount filed in neighboring Hamilton County, which has about a third of the population and a fraction of the gun violence. 

The other 107 were never brought before a judge to determine whether the person whose gun had been confiscated was dangerous. None of those people were prohibited from accessing other guns. 

That includes the FedEx shooter, and Jason Phipps, the man who police say fatally shot his wife with a shotgun. 

There was no follow up, Jill Phipps' mother, Brenda Limbach, said. “That’s the problem. It’s not being enforced.”

Mears would not agree to an interview for this story. But the deputy prosecutor who oversees red flag cases, Rob Beatson, said prosecutors can’t bring a case if they don’t think they can meet their burden of proof under the law. 

“If we don't believe that the person meets the standard of dangerousness, ethically, we can't file that case,” he said. “I mean, we're not afraid to do tough cases. But if we, after evaluating a case, don't believe that we've met our burden, we can't just throw it to a fact finder and hope that they come down in our favor.”

Legal experts told IndyStar that rationale is seriously flawed. They were jarred by the lack of filings.

Judge Amy Jones, whose court is responsible for red flag cases in Marion County, said every single one of IMPD’s 168 gun confiscations should have been filed with her court. There is no discretion. Once a gun has been confiscated, the law requires police to file an affidavit with the court within 48 hours.

“You don’t have an option,” she said. “You’ve taken something from someone. You’ve seized something. You have to file.” 

Judges elsewhere in the state told IndyStar the same thing. 

“Under the statute, it requires a submission to the court,” said Judge Michael Casati, who oversees red flag cases in Hamilton County. 

Jody Madeira, a law professor who teaches a class on the Second Amendment at Indiana University, said the decision not to file red flag cases against people such as the FedEx shooter and Phipps was “incredibly sobering.”

“These issues were clearly present of safety and danger and mental health needs," she said, "but these cases weren’t getting filed at all."

“It’s awful, to put it mildly.” 

Red flag cases linger

Even when prosecutors did file cases, there were long delays that jeopardized public safety.

The law requires cases to be filed within 48 hours, but for the 61 cases prosecutors did file, IndyStar found that on average, authorities took 27 days to file with the court. 

That’s 13 times longer than what's required in the law.

The delays didn't end there. 

The law is intended to quickly deliver a verdict on whether the person is dangerous. Hearings are supposed to happen within about 14 days, though red flag targets can ask for a continuance of up to 60 days.

But in Marion County, cases stretched on for many months, sometimes lasting more than a year. 

The reason was two-fold. 

Courts have to ensure that people whose guns are seized are given notice of the hearing. When cases aren’t being filed quickly, it’s more challenging to locate those people to serve them notice. 

The other issue was that prosecutors simply didn’t have police or other witnesses lined up to testify.

“We could have gone forward on hearings,” Judge Jones said. “There were no witnesses that were brought into these hearings.”

The delays put public safety at risk because until a judge finds red flag targets dangerous, they can purchase or possess other firearms.

Take the case of Jeffrey Padgett.

In February 2020, Padgett's neighbor, Manuel Curiel, called police when a bullet ripped through his apartment near where he was sleeping.

“A few more feet," Curiel told IndyStar, "and it would have hit me." The bullet landed near his child's toys.

Padgett told police he believed people were trying to break into his apartment, so he fired a round. They determined he was paranoid and delusional. They seized his gun — a 9 mm handgun — and took him to Eskenazi hospital. 

Padgett had a history of such behavior. His adult son told police Padgett had shot out his own tire a few months earlier. And police had seized a gun from him in 2016 after he fired warning shots at what he thought were intruders on his roof.

Despite the multiple warning signs, authorities didn't file a red flag case with the court until nearly a month after Curiel called police.

The case was continued repeatedly for more than 20 months. One hearing was rescheduled because Padgett failed to show up. Another was rescheduled because he said he had a work conflict, and yet another because he said he needed more time to meet with his physician. 

At any time, prosecutors could have objected to Padgett's requests and insisted on moving the case forward. They didn't. 

As the case dragged on, Padgett faced no restrictions on his ability to possess a gun. In August 2020, police in Fort Branch responded to a road rage incident involving Padgett. 

In that incident, a father and son truck driving team told police that Padgett, also a truck driver, had pointed a gun at them as they passed Padgett’s truck. Padgett then pulled in front of them and stopped them, banged on the door of their vehicle and threatened to kill them, they said. 

Padgett told police he felt the driver of the truck was using the vehicle as a weapon and he needed to protect himself. He was charged with felony intimidation. A trial is scheduled for March.

When Curiel learned about the incident, he shook his head.

“If he got a gun again,” he said, “I'm surprised.”

A narrow view of the law

One reason police and prosecutors decline so many red flag cases is their narrow view of the law. 

Authorities have long understood the law as a response to mental health crises, rather than a tool to stop dangerous people regardless of their mental health status.  

IMPD's own policies only contemplate the law being used to seize firearms from people who are "mentally ill" or experiencing a "mental health crisis."

The Marion County Prosecutor's Office has no written policy on the topic. That said, a spokesperson said prosecutors are reluctant to pursue cases without a mental health component because it "risks an unconstitutional application of the law."  

Prosecutors also have resisted filing red flag cases alongside criminal charges, even though police say that would be an additional safeguard in situations where the criminal charges don't stick, which happens often.

"It's my belief that they should file both at the same time," said IMPD Det. Julie Dutrieux, a firearms investigator. But the prosecutor's office "had a different stance on whether we should file (gun) retentions along with a criminal case."

Experts said such a narrow view of the law is wrong. 

Even gun rights activists such as Guy Relford, who helped lawmakers craft the 2019 revision to the law, said red flag cases are not limited to people with mental health disorders. 

"The argument that the statute requires mental health issues to be present to file a red flag case is absolutely fundamentally false," he said. 

Paul Helmke, an Indiana University professor and former president of the Brady Center to Prevent Gun Violence, said the law is strong because of its plain but powerful directives. “This person is dangerous, this person has a gun, and you should take the gun away,” Helmke said. 

There's also no prohibition against filing a red flag case on top of criminal charges. Prosecutors in at least five other counties — Tippecanoe, Hamilton, Allen, Montgomery and Harrison — have done just that, according to state court data reviewed by IndyStar. 

“This takes the firearms away and/or suspends their ability to purchase and/or suspends their permit,” said Casati, the Hamilton County judge. “So it does something different than the criminal case while the criminal case is pending.”

The unnecessary restrictions that Marion County authorities impose on themselves have very real consequences — and raise the question of whether another of this year's mass shootings could have been prevented.

Another mass killing

On the evening of March 13, Jeanettrius Moore and her family were gathered in a home on Randolph Street preparing for her daughter's birthday party the next day.

Outside, her boyfriend Malik Halfacre paced back and forth. He needed money. He knew Moore had recently received a stimulus check. But she wouldn't give him what he wanted. 

Halfacre decided he would take her money anyway, according to police.

He went inside, climbed the stairs and tried to grab money from Moore’s purse, police said. Moore’s brother tried to stop him.

That’s when Halfacre started firing at everyone in the room, according to police.

They say he killed Moore's brother, Dequan Moore, 23; Moore's mother, Tomeeka Brown, 44; Moore's cousin, Anthony Johnson, 35; and Moore's daughter, Eve Moore. She was only 7.

He shot Moore, too. She survived with multiple holes in her back.

Halfacre has pleaded not guilty.

The massacre shocked the city. 

Unlike the FedEx shooter, police had not previously seized a gun from Halfacre. But they may have had an opportunity to do so if they had considered using the red flag law after a domestic dispute less than a year earlier. 

On May 20, 2020, Halfacre startled a south-side neighborhood when he allegedly fired at least seven bullets at Moore's unoccupied car during a dispute. 

“It just seemed like he just couldn’t control his anger, didn’t have no self control,” Moore told IndyStar. 

Halfacre left before police arrived, Moore said. "My boyfriend shot up my car," she told them. 

Police asked for his name and a description of his car, which she gave them, she said, along with the address of where he was staying at the time. 

"After that," she said, "I didn't hear nothing else."

As far as Moore knows, that conversation marked the beginning and the end of IMPD's investigation of the incident. 

IMPD refused to discuss the Halfacre case — or any other cases in this story. The department also refused to provide IndyStar with a full copy of the police report from the night Moore's car was shot up. But a media version of the report with few details notes the ammunition fired at Moore's car was .40 caliber bullets — the same used in the killings on Randolph Street. 

Moore told IndyStar that Halfacre used the same gun in both incidents. 

‘That might have made a difference’

Had police followed up on the information Moore provided after her car was shot up, they could have arrested him — or at the very least used the red flag law to seize the gun he would later allegedly use to kill Moore's family. 

“Hindsight is 20-20," Helmke said, "but that might have made a difference."

Marion County authorities claim that wasn't a possibility. 

"With respect to the criminal charges, follow up work was done by the detective," Beatson, the deputy prosecutor, said. "Witnesses refused to cooperate, which is something that we see all too often. And that's what happened here. So that's why we didn't file criminal charges."

Moore staunchly rejected any suggestion that she didn't fully cooperate. 

"Nobody ever reached back out after the fact that I made the report,” she said. “It was like, ‘Okay, what do I do now?’”

With no help from police, she sought a protective order against Halfacre. Court filings show that she described the vehicle shooting and provided a photo of her car pocked with bullet holes. She also said Halfacre filled her gas tank with sugar and slashed her tires. The courts granted her request on Oct. 6, 2020.

Even if police and prosecutors felt they didn't have enough for a criminal case, they could have at least pursued a red flag gun retention, for which the burden of proof is much lower. 

Again, Beatson argued that wasn't possible. 

"We can't just use a red flag law as a backstop for when we can't meet our burden in a criminal case," he said. 

Experts and judges in other counties, however, say that's exactly what authorities can do. 

"Red flag laws are not supposed to be a mini trial," said Madeira, the law professor. "It's a quick and dirty mechanism to safeguard people from themselves and from others — family members, domestic violence situations, etc. If they're not being treated like a sort of quick mechanism, I'm not sure what purpose they serve."

Jones, the Marion County judge, did not want to comment on any specific case, but she said red flag cases, which are civil, not criminal, are much easier to prove.

"The burden of proof is so low," she said. "It's not your traditional 'beyond a reasonable doubt' that you see in the criminal cases."

For this reason, red flag cases are often proven on a single officer's testimony alone. 

In Halfacre's case, they also had another key piece of evidence that could have been presented at a red flag hearing: His prior criminal history. 

In 2017, he was charged with aggravated battery, carrying a handgun without a license and pointing a firearm after he allegedly fired shots at a man outside a west-side residence. The man ended up in the hospital with bullet wounds. 

As part of a plea deal, the first two charges were dismissed. The last charge — pointing a firearm — stuck. He spent eight months in jail and was ordered to receive anger control counseling. Because it was a felony, Halfacre’s name was sent to a federal background check system to prevent him from purchasing a firearm from a licensed dealer. 

It was all the more reason police should have been concerned when they learned from Moore in 2020 that he had a gun and were told he had used it to shoot up her car.

Beatson pointed out that Halfacre's name had already been sent to a background check system because of the felony. "I don't know what additional consequences the red flag law would have imposed," he said.

But the additional consequence if the red flag law had been used appears obvious: The gun that Moore said Halfacre used to shoot her and murder four members of her family would have been taken away from him prior to that heinous act. 

"Yeah, he was a danger to both that individual victim and society as a whole," Beatson said of the earlier vehicle shooting, "but is that the type of dangerousness that's encapsulated in the red flag law?"

State officials share blame

Guns are not hard to find in Indiana.

The state has some of the loosest gun laws in the nation. There are plenty of ways to obtain one without going to a store that uses the national background check system.

Beatson noted that many people obtain firearms even when they are legally prohibited from doing so. There were nearly 1,200 such cases pending in Marion County as of September, he said.

Still, Indiana's red flag law is one of the few tools lawmakers have gifted local authorities to take guns out of the hands of dangerous people without the heavy legal burden that comes with a criminal case.

A major problem remains, though.

Unlike red flag laws in other states, Indiana's does not prohibit people whose guns were seized from purchasing or accessing additional firearms while their red flag case is pending. 

In late 2018, Melissia Mitchell began expressing paranoid delusions. Over the course of a few days, police responded to her apartment on at least six occasions. 

She told officers the FBI had tapped her phone. Someone was jiggling her door handle. There were suspicious people in the parking lot. A hit man was after her kids and had fired shots at her door. 

Police found no evidence to substantiate any of it.

On Dec. 5, 2018, she told police she would “do what I got to do” to defend herself and her family against the hit man. They seized a loaded .380 semi-automatic Ruger handgun from her and took her to the hospital.

A few days later, she purchased another .380 Ruger handgun. When police knocked on her door to check on her, they say she jumped off her second story balcony.

She told her downstairs neighbor, Lisa Ferguson, that someone was chasing her.

“So I let her in,” Ferguson told IndyStar. “I could tell her leg was busted.”

Police transported the woman to the hospital again, but they did not find her handgun.

Later that night, Ferguson’s dog began digging at the cushions on her couch. She thought maybe something had rolled out of the woman’s pocket or purse. A piece of gum or candy. Then she pushed the cushion out of the way.

It was her neighbor’s loaded gun.

“I just thought I was gonna die,” Ferguson recalled.

She called the police. They retrieved the gun. Two days later, prosecutors filed a red flag case against Mitchell.

Because of the language in the law, she was able to purchase yet a third handgun while her case was pending — another .380 Ruger.

On the morning of Feb. 22, 2019, Mitchell got into an argument with one of her other neighbors, Seth Johnson. He had complained that she was making too much noise. A few hours later, Johnson was walking to his truck when Mitchell approached him from behind.

“Am I being too loud now?” Mitchell said. “How’s this?”

She shot him in the back.

Johnson told police he fell to the ground and began to scream. “Help! Don’t kill me!”

Mitchell then shot him in the back a second time.

Johnson survived the attack, but the bullets pierced his right lung and broke several ribs.

Warnings ignored

Despite the potential for such tragedies, IndyStar found that state officials have ignored warnings about the gap in the law.

The FBI’s National Instant Criminal Background Check System Section informed Indiana State Police about the gap in May 2018.

In an email IndyStar obtained through a public records request, Teresa Henderson, a liaison for the federal background check system, wrote that the state needed “to have something written in to the part between seizure and hearing where the individual could not possess firearms until a hearing was held.”

Despite the FBI’s warning, state lawmakers declined to make that change when they revised the law in 2019.

Mears, the Marion County prosecutor, has also called attention to the gap, which he considers a "loophole." His office has spoken to lawmakers, but to no avail. 

Gun rights activists staunchly oppose imposing firearms restrictions on those who are flagged until there is a hearing and a judge determines the person is dangerous.

Opponents include Relford, the Carmel attorney who helped craft the 2019 revision to the law. He hosts the WIBC radio show “The Gun Guy" and leads the 2A Project, a gun rights group that prominently features an image of the Statue of Liberty holding a rifle on its website.

He said the constitutional rights of potentially dangerous people outweighs the potential for violent events, such as the shooting of Seth Johnson.

“I think what anybody is calling a loophole in the statute is simply the constitutional requirement of due process,” he said. “And no one's ever going to convince me that notwithstanding tragedies that occurred, we should simply ignore constitutional protections.”

Ultimately, the Republican supermajority at the Statehouse agreed with him, to the chagrin of Democrats. 

"So here you have it," then-Sen. Mark Stoops, D-Bloomington, said during the final vote on the 2019 legislation. "A slightly better red flag law with holes big enough you could drive a semi-automatic weapon through it."

When confronted with shootings such as those that took place at FedEx, Relford and Republican lawmakers have directed their criticisms at Mears, a Democrat. Relford compared Mears’ defense of his actions in the FedEx case to a batter who strikes out without taking his bat off his shoulder, then complains the bat is too heavy.

“You never swung it,” Relford said.

Rep. Donna Schaibley, the Carmel Republican who carried the 2019 legislation, said she has no intention of further revising the law. 

She declined an interview request, but in an emailed statement she said the law as currently written “strikes a balance between protecting Hoosier communities and preserving our Second Amendment and due process rights.”

She blamed Mears for not utilizing the law’s hearing provisions that could have prevented the FedEx shooter from purchasing the rifles he used in the massacre.

“I have no plans to propose an amendment to the Red Flag Law because when the law's hearing procedures provided are utilized, as they are effectively by other counties, firearms can be kept out of the hands of dangerous individuals while also providing due process of law," she said.

In addition to closing the gap that allows gun purchases while a red flag case is pending, advocates for changing the law would also like to add a requirement that red flag targets who are suffering from mental health distress be provided services such as a psychological evaluation and treatment.

"That’s really what you would need," Beatson said, "to make this law actually have an impact on the mental health of people who come in."

New changes

While lawmakers don't appear poised to revise the law, the FedEx shooting did prompt changes in Marion County. 

The revelation that prosecutors hadn't filed a red flag case against the shooter sent the prosecutor's office into a scramble. On the same day Mears held his press conference in the wake of the massacre, his deputies were filing a red flag case in court that the office had been sitting on for 44 days.

In the following weeks, the prosecutor's office nearly tripled the number of red flag filings it made in court when compared with the number of cases it filed in the months before the FedEx shooting. 

The sudden change is perhaps the most tacit admission by prosecutors that they could have been handling red flag cases differently all along.

The FedEx shooting also led to a shift in Marion County’s judicial system — one that would cut prosecutors out of the picture at the start of the red flag process. 

Jones, the superior court judge, made the change in May 2021. Now, police are required to file an affidavit directly with the court, effectively bypassing the prosecutor’s office.

The directive simply ensures that Marion County is following what the state’s red flag statute has always said. Beatson himself acknowledged the process is “more in line with the statute” compared to how his office and IMPD were managing it before. 

The prosecutor's office also has made changes. For the first time in years, it designated a single prosecutor, Drew Wignall, to handle red flag cases.

“We should do this more often,” one IMPD detective told Wignall after a red flag hearing attended by IndyStar.

The results in Marion County have been dramatic.

• Since the shooting, more than 90% of IMPD gun seizures have resulted in red flag court filings, as opposed to just 36% previously.
• Cases are being filed in less than three days on average, as opposed to an average of 27 days previously.
• Cases are typically being resolved in weeks, as opposed to months or years.
• At least 36 people were reported to the FBI's background check system in the first five months after the FedEx shooting. Prior to the shooting, not a single person was reported as the result of a red flag gun seizure. 

But for some shooting victims, the changes came too late. 

Two people who were injured in the FedEx shooting and the family of a man who died are seeking $2.1 million in damages from the city. In an October letter from their attorney, they cited the failure of police and prosecutors to bring a red flag case against the FedEx shooter.

It was the first time a formal allegation has been made that authorities violated Indiana law by not bringing a red flag case before a judge. 

Other FedEx victims are still living with the specter of the shooting.  

Michelle Alexander, who lost her brother in the FedEx shooting, is adjusting to life as an only child. 

“It's literally the worst feeling,” she said. “I mean, we have a huge, huge hole in our lives that we're never going to get back.”

Brenda Limbach is now caring for her daughters' three school-aged children. Jason Phipps, who has pleaded not guilty, is scheduled to go on trial for murder in February. 

Limbach still thinks about how the girls were ushered barefoot to the police station to describe their mother's death. How the girls were the ones who removed the gun from their father's hands.

And how if the red flag law had been properly used, that gun might not have been in his hands at all.

IndyStar reporter Emily Hopkins contributed to this story. 

By Tony Cook and Johnny Magdaleno

An IndyStar investigation has found that Indiana's red flag law too often fails to prevent shootings and other gun crimes. The mass shooting at an Indianapolis FedEx facility in April is perhaps the most egregious example. But it’s not the only one. Here are five other times Indiana’s red flag law failed in Marion County.

Jason Phipps 

What happened 

On June 21, 2020, an Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department officer responded to an incident involving Jason and Jill Phipps. The officer found Jason outside in his underwear yelling at Jill and walking toward her with his fists clenched. He shouted at the officer, then started walking toward the officer with his fists clenched. The officer believed he was going to be assaulted and pointed his Taser at Jason, then handcuffed him, according to a police report.

The officer observed redness on Jill's neck and lip. She wouldn't say if her husband had assaulted her, but she said he had retrieved a .45 caliber handgun from the basement and had threatened to kill himself or anyone who tried to stop him. Police seized the handgun under the red flag law.

A red flag case was never filed in court against Jason Phipps, which could have suspended his gun rights. Seventeen days later, he fatally shot Jill Phipps with a shotgun, according to police. He has pleaded not guilty.

What it shows

The first step of a red flag gun seizure is to remove a gun. The second step is to present information to a judge, who then decides if the person is dangerous and should be barred from possessing any gun. But authorities never took that second step with Jason. He used another gun to kill his wife, police say.

Shane Tapscott

What happened

On July 11, 2020, Shane Tapscott shouted "(expletive) the police" as IMPD officers drove by. When the officers reached a stop sign, they heard a gunshot. They approached Tapscott and saw the grip of a pistol sticking out of his pocket. He ran inside a house. A witness told police she believed Tapscott had mental health issues because he thought the CIA was after him. Police called a SWAT team, which detained Tapscott and seized a .40 caliber handgun from him under the red flag law.

They initiated a criminal case but declined to file a red flag case against Tapscott, which could have quickly ended his right to possess a gun.

In December 2020, a fight erupted at the same house to which SWAT was called in July. As the fight escalated, police say Tapscott pulled out a different gun — an FM9B rifle — and fired. One of the bullets hit a 13-year-old in the hand. Tapscott has pleaded not guilty.

What it shows

A red flag case is supposed to be a quick way to suspend a dangerous person's gun rights. The burden for police and prosecutors is significantly lower than the burden in a criminal case. But authorities in Marion County have been reluctant to initiate red flag cases alongside criminal filings — a common practice in other counties. If they had, it may have made it more difficult for Tapscott to possess firearms while his criminal case was pending. It still is pending, to this day.

Jeffrey Padgett

What happened

On Feb. 22, 2020, Padgett's neighbor called police when a bullet ripped through his apartment, landing near his child’s toys.

Padgett told police he fired his gun because he believed people were trying to break into his apartment. Police determined he was paranoid and delusional. They seized his 9 mm handgun under the red flag law. 

Padgett had a history of such behavior. His adult son told police Padgett had shot out his own tire a few months earlier. And police had seized a gun from him in 2016 after he fired warning shots at what he thought were people trying to get into his chimney.

Despite his history, Marion County prosecutors allowed the 2020 red flag case to linger for 20 months. During that time, Padgett was involved in an alleged road rage incident. A father and son truck driving team told Fort Branch police that Padgett, also a truck driver, had pointed a gun at them as they passed his truck. Padgett then pulled in front of them and stopped them, banged on the door of their vehicle and threatened to kill them, they said. 

Padgett told police he felt the driver of the truck was using the vehicle as a weapon and he needed to protect himself. He was charged with felony intimidation. A trial is scheduled for March.

What it shows

Red flag cases are supposed to be filed with the court within 48 hours of a gun seizure. A hearing is then set within about 14 days to determine if the person is dangerous and if their right to possess a gun should be suspended.

In Padgett's case, prosecutors took nearly a month to file with the court and then allowed the case to be continued repeatedly. The delays allowed Padgett to legally possess a gun at the time of the road rage incident, despite the multiple warning signs that preceded it.

Melissia Mitchell

What happened

In late 2018, Melissia Mitchell began expressing paranoid delusions. IMPD responded to her apartment on at least six occasions over the course of a few days. She told officers the FBI had tapped her phone. Someone was jiggling her door handle. There were suspicious people in the parking lot. A hit man was after her kids. Police found no evidence to substantiate any of it. On Dec. 5, 2018, they seized a loaded .380 Ruger handgun from her under the red flag law.

She purchased another .380 Ruger handgun a few days later. When police knocked on her door to check on her, they say she jumped off her second story balcony. They seized the new gun and filed a red flag case against Mitchell.

While her red flag case was pending, she purchased yet a third .380 Ruger handgun. On Feb. 22, 2019, she got into an argument with her neighbor and shot him twice in the back. The neighbor survived the attack, but the bullets pierced his right lung and broke several ribs.

What it shows

Unlike red flag laws in other states, Indiana's does not prohibit red flag targets from purchasing or accessing additional firearms while their red flag case is pending. This is why Mitchell was able to legally purchase the gun she used to shoot her neighbor.

Marion County prosecutors and the FBI have warned the state about the gap in the law, but lawmakers have declined to address it because of concerns that it would infringe on the constitutional and due process rights of gun owners.  

Malik Halfacre 

What happened

On May 20, 2020, Malik Halfacre allegedly fired multiple rounds into his girlfriend's unoccupied car. Halfacre, who had a history of gun crimes, left the scene shortly before IMPD officers arrived, according to his former girlfriend, Jeanettrius Moore. Moore told IndyStar she provided police with Halfacre's name, the make and color of his car, and the address where he was staying at the time. Officers observed .40 caliber bullet shells at the scene. Moore said no one followed up with her.

In March 2021, Halfacre fatally shot four members of Moore's family in a residence on Randolph Street, according to police. It was the second mass shooting of the year. Officers found .40 caliber bullet shells at that scene as well. 

Moore told IndyStar he used the same exact gun in both incidents. Halfacre has pleaded not guilty.

What it shows

Even if police and prosecutors felt they didn't have enough to bring a criminal case against Halfacre after he allegedly shot up Moore's car in May 2020, they could have tried to seize his firearm under the red flag law. 

Since Halfacre allegedly used the same gun in both incidents, a red flag seizure in May 2020 may have helped prevent the Randolph Street shooting.

IndyStar reporter Emily Hopkins contributed to this story. 

By Tony Cook and Johnny Magdaleno

This story contains discussion of suicide. If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts, call the Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 800-273-8255 or seek out area resources.

The afternoon just before Indianapolis' worst mass shooting was unusually calm in Sheila Hole's house.

She got off work at Five Guys on April 15 and came home with a burger, fries and a chocolate shake for her son. When she arrived, she found a rarity: Her suicidal and physically abusive 19-year-old was in a good mood.

After eating he told her he wanted a haircut. Their usual go-to, the Great Clips on Shadeland Avenue, was closed for remodeling. So they decided she would cut his hair there in their east-side home. 

She messed up a couple of times so they talked about shaving his head. He was OK with that. One effect of his obsessive-compulsive disorder was that he didn't like having long hair.

The events of the past year weighed heavily on Sheila Hole. Domestic abuse, police interventions, his threats of suicide, his dead-end therapy sessions. The FBI task force officer who showed up at their door to say he was a neo-Nazi. The time he emerged from a gun store, smiling, with his new rifle.

Their relationship was always one comment or violent memory away from becoming volatile. But that evening, he decided to draw a hot bath for himself.

He sat it in for 30 minutes. She thought — she hoped — he was at peace. 

She said goodnight and went to bed. He asked if he could order a movie. She told him he could.

Such moments — rare as they were — were why she never stopped trying, despite his violent tendencies, abusive behavior and consistently bad decisions.

"I think all is pretty good," Sheila wrote later in a journal documenting their final interaction. 

He never ordered a movie. Instead, he slipped out of the house and traveled to a FedEx facility in southwest Indianapolis. He had two rifles in his car.

Once there, he selfishly and callously unleashed four minutes of terror. 

He killed eight people and wounded five others before killing himself. Some of his victims were arriving or leaving work. Others were collecting their paychecks. 

All innocent. All targets for no reason. All with grieving families left behind. Loved ones and a city searching for an answer. Why?

And could anyone have done something to prevent it?

The reason for doing this story

Understanding the killer's backstory exposes not only his culpability — he is the one accountable for his actions — but also whether those with the power and responsibility to intervene did all they should.

IndyStar found law enforcement and mental health care professionals had multiple interactions with the killer. They were warned of his propensity for violence. But at crucial moments, their interventions failed.

The details of the killer's life were told to IndyStar by Sheila Hole in a series of interviews between September and November. She was hesitant to speak at first. She didn't want to cause the victims of her son's crimes any additional grief.

She said she decided to break her silence because she hopes telling the story will expose a series of shortcomings. That includes her own mistakes.

Sheila provided IndyStar with medical records and other documents dating back 10 years. She gave reporters a journal, which she kept in a briefcase by her kitchen table, that she filled after the shooting. It details her efforts to find help the year prior.

IndyStar also spoke with her close friend and her sister, who confirmed the killer's abusive behavior and the family's interactions with the FBI.

IndyStar has decided to share this story with a simple intention. We hope, much like Sheila Hole, that some good can come of this, whether by giving more attention to mental health care issues or holding accountable those whose job it is to protect us.

A history of mental illness

The killer had a long history of mental health issues. 

That doesn't mean he was destined to become a mass shooter. One in five U.S. adults have a diagnosable mental disorder, according to the American Psychiatric Association.

"People with mental illnesses are no more likely to be violent than those without a mental health disorder," the American Psychiatric Association says. "In fact, those with mental illness are 10 times more likely to be the victims of violent crime."

Sheila began to notice issues with her son as early as fourth grade. His agitated behavior spurred her to bring him to Barrington Health Center on the southeast side of Indianapolis.

She took it seriously. She had reason to. 

Seven years earlier, her son's father killed himself after an argument with Sheila over his drug use. 

“I said, ‘You’re useless anyways, go kill yourself,'” Sheila told IndyStar. “I was angry. I said it. And he did it.”

A neighbor found his body in the family’s backyard. Their son was 3.

The experience shaped how Sheila would react years later, when her son threatened to follow in his father’s footsteps. “I couldn’t take it as a ploy,” she said.

When he began to exhibit symptoms of a mental health disorder, his mother felt confident she could find him help.

It was a belief borne of her experience with his older sister and only sibling. She had Tourette syndrome. To help her calm down, Sheila used to wrap her arms around her and squeeze tight. "I love you, I love you, I love you," Sheila would repeat.

The family’s physician was unfamiliar with Tourette syndrome, so he recommended an expert in childhood neurology. She called the office, but getting an appointment proved difficult.

So she began dialing numbers that differed from the main line by just one digit. Finally she landed on the direct line to the expert's office. A staff member booked the appointment. 

The appointment led to her daughter's diagnosis of Tourette syndrome, and medication that helped her manage the neurological disorder.

Now, she focused that same determination on her son's behavior.

"I was like, all I’ve got to do is... get in and tell people what’s going on,” she said.

Troubling behavior

At Barrington Health Center, he was diagnosed with obsessive-compulsive disorder and prescribed Lexapro, a depression and anxiety medication.

The following year, as he started fifth grade, the problems grew. During a 2-month period in the fall of 2012, medical records show he resisted going to school. He was aggressive with his mother “to the point that mom doesn’t know what to do anymore.” His mother told his therapist "he has always been aggressive to her but she never told anybody.” 

Twice in the medical records there were references to police being called to the family's home.

His behavior had deteriorated. The records described “aggression to others, blatant disrespect for authority, property destruction." He "often loses temper, argues with adults, defiance, often blames others for his/her mistakes, is often touchy or easily annoyed by others, is angry and resentful.” 

Post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms were also noted. He “has had a lot of stress and trauma — dad killed himself, several deaths in family.”

For the first time, self-harm was listed as a risk factor.

He was further diagnosed with disruptive behavior disorder and anxiety disorder. Several behavioral therapy sessions followed. He was prescribed a stronger dose of Lexapro, plus Intuniv, an attention deficit hyperactivity disorder medication.

Still, none of it seemed to make a significant difference, Sheila said. 

Water fight turns violent

On May 16, 2013, her son, then 11 years old, was arrested after a water fight with his mother’s boyfriend turned violent. The boy was upset he had been sprayed with a hose. He began yelling and spraying the inside of the house, according to a police report.

After the boyfriend left, the boy locked himself in the bathroom and began destroying it. When his mother picked the lock, he charged at her, she told police. He punched and slapped her in the face, kicked her legs, bit her, and then, according to the police report, stabbed her in the arm with a table knife.

He was transported to juvenile detention for a few hours and later put on probation for several months, his mother said.

That fall, he began attending Raymond Park Intermediate and Middle School. It didn't go well. His inflexibility caused frequent outbursts. He was often overcome with anxiety. After just a few weeks, he dropped out. 

"I'm fighting for like two hours to get him to school. We go in there, he's crying, I'm crying," Sheila told IndyStar. "And they're like, 'He can go home.' After 12 or 13 times I'm like, OK, that is not doing us any good."

Staying home reduced the stress in his life. In that sense, Sheila said, the isolation was something of a relief. But it did little to improve his underlying mental health challenges. He remained depressed, she said. 

He enjoyed spending time on his computer and playing video games. But he never attended high school and did not graduate. He also refused counseling, Sheila said. 

Over time, he developed a fascination with the military.

He began going to the nearby Indy Gun Bunker, a firearms and military surplus store. He would buy MREs — meals ready to eat — and try on camouflage jackets. 

He even thought he might enlist. He and his mother spoke with a recruiter after he turned 18. But they were told his braces would prevent him from serving, Sheila said. 

Then, on March 2, 2020, he bought something else from the surplus store.

‘He’s going to kill himself’

He had threatened suicide before. So when he told his mother he wanted to purchase a gun, he didn’t hide why.

“He says he's going to get a gun and kill himself,” Sheila told IndyStar.

She refused to drive him to the store at first. When he said he would drive himself, she relented and went with him. She was worried, but told herself, he probably doesn’t have enough money to buy a gun.

She also believed there would be a several-day waiting period before he could take possession of the gun. She was wrong.

“I couldn’t even believe he was filling out the paperwork,” she said. She considered screaming in the middle of the store: “He’s going to kill himself!”

Then something happened that bought her time. He successfully purchased a shotgun, but the store was out of ammunition.

When they got home, she tried to talk to him. “If you won’t go to counseling, I have to call someone on you to stop you from doing this,” she remembers telling him.

He got angry. He punched her.

“It’s my life, I’ll end it the way I want,” he told her. “If you call the police I will point an unloaded gun at them and they will shoot me anyways.”

Driven by desperation, Sheila and her daughter made a plan that night. The next day, they would go to IMPD’s East District office. They'd plead for help.

Officers were in the middle of roll call when the two women arrived. Sheila banged on the door until someone opened it.

Police reports from that day show she told officers everything: Her son had purchased a .410 caliber shotgun the day before. He had threatened suicide by cop. He had hit her. His father had killed himself.

She said she also told them he'd been diagnosed with several mental health disorders.

When police arrived at the home, Sheila called her son downstairs. Police handcuffed him. He “became immediately anxious,” a police report says.

“Please just turn the power strip off on my computer,” he told officers. “I don’t want anyone to see what’s on it.”

Police confiscated the shotgun under Indiana’s red flag law, which allows law enforcement to seize firearms without a warrant when they believe someone is a danger to themselves or others.

They also saw what they described in the police report as white supremacist websites on his computer. Sheila said one of the officers told her that her son was on a neo-Nazi website, talking to someone in Germany with neo-Nazi rhetoric.

Sheila said she told the officers to take his computer and arrest him, but they didn't.

Instead, they kept him on the couch for about 45 minutes.

He downplayed any suicidal thoughts or plans. But he voiced feelings of sadness and depression, according to the police report. He said he would benefit from counseling. So he was transported to Eskenazi Hospital for further assessment.

Guns were now out of the picture, Sheila thought. Her son was finally going to get the help he needed.

Neither of those things turned out to be true.

‘They brushed him off’

He spent less than two hours at Eskenazi before he was released, Sheila told IndyStar.

Medical records show he was seen by an emergency medicine physician. The records show the physician was aware that he was brought in by police, had recently purchased a gun, made statements that he did not want to live and contemplated pointing a gun at police in an attempt to end his life.

“The patient denies this in its entirety to me,” the physician wrote, “says he feels fine has no medical complaints and (does) not feel like he would hurt himself or anyone else.”

There is no indication in the medical records that he was seen by a psychologist or psychiatrist.

Under “Final diagnosis,” the physician wrote, “None.”

The physician did not respond to inquiries from IndyStar, including a note left at an address associated with him in public records. Reporters sent questions to Eskenazi about whether a formal psychological assessment or suicide risk evaluation were performed. Todd Harper, a spokesman for Eskenazi, said the hospital could not answer specific questions because of patient privacy requirements.

“We are deeply saddened by the tragedy at FedEx,” Harper said in an emailed statement. “Eskenazi Health follows standard evidence-based policies and practices governing the assessment of safety and suicide risk in all patient care settings. Decisions regarding involuntary detentions and treatment are made based upon clinical review and clear legal parameters in place to protect individual rights.”

Mental health experts who reviewed the medical records at IndyStar’s request said hospitals should be equipped to deal with complex psychiatric issues, especially when someone presents a threat to themselves or others. The reality is, they often are not.

“That’s not uncommon, but they brushed him off,” said Jeffrey A. Lieberman, chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University and a former president of the American Psychiatric Association. “They sent him out because he said the right things initially and they didn't see any extreme acuity of the situation.”

‘They cut him loose’

The decisions made at Eskenazi would also play a role in determining his access to firearms.

On March 3, 2020 — the day police responded to the home and confiscated his shotgun — it should have set in motion the filing of a probable cause affidavit with a Marion County judge. Under the red flag law, police must file an affidavit with a judge within 48 hours of confiscating a weapon.

But at that time, police were first sending the probable cause information to be vetted by the Marion County Prosecutor’s Office.

Had prosecutors decided to bring the case before a judge, a hearing would have been set within 14 days. If the judge found the then-18 year old to be a danger to himself or others, he would have been prohibited from possessing or purchasing firearms — including the rifles he would later use to carry out the FedEx shooting.

But Marion County prosecutors declined to open a red flag case.

Marion County Prosecutor Ryan Mears would later blame what he called shortcomings in the law. He would also stress the quick release from the hospital.

“He was cut loose,” Mears said during a press conference in April defending his office’s decision.

“They didn't so much as prescribe him any additional medication after he walked out of there or any medication. And so we're left with a situation (where) we have one incident, he was treated by mental health professionals, they didn't civilly commit him, they didn't prescribe him any additional medication, and he was cut loose.”

‘They could have arrested me’

Sheila received a call to pick up her son from Eskenazi less than two hours after he had been detained. She was shocked — and afraid.

“I figure he’s going to beat on me for doing this to him,” she told IndyStar.

For a while, he said little about what had happened. Sheila asked if they talked to him or helped him. "No," he said. He did, however, express concern he had been labeled a neo-Nazi.

A day or two later, his mom was sitting on a chair in the living room, playing Candy Crush on her phone. Suddenly, he emerged from his bedroom and sprinted down the stairs.

He ran up to her, she said, and smacked her on the side of the head as hard as he could.

She felt her eye shake in its socket. Her phone went flying across the room.

“What did I do?” she asked.

He said he understood why she called the police about the gun. But “you did not have to tell them that I hit you," he said. "They could have arrested me for domestic violence!”

I wish they would have, Sheila thought.

IMPD tries to return the gun

That week, Sheila received a phone call from a woman at IMPD. She was trying to reach her son about the gun, but he was not answering. Sheila told the woman she would tell him to call her.

The woman called again an hour later. She said the woman told her that her son had an attitude problem, and that he hung up on her. The woman said she just needed to know if he wanted the gun back.

Sheila couldn’t believe it. “Hell no!” she remembers telling the woman.

The woman told Sheila she needed to hear it from him. So Sheila convinced him to get on the phone and tell the woman IMPD could keep the gun.

What was on his computer?

Police intervention prompted little action from doctors or prosecutors, but it did draw the attention of another agency — the FBI.

The material IMPD saw on his computer led to a referral to the FBI. Details of what exactly police saw have never been made public.

Sheila said she went into her son's bedroom after police left on March 3, 2020. On his computer screen, she said, was a Google search for a song about Krieg, an apocalyptic, nuclear-decimated world from the fantasy game Warhammer 40,000. Inhabitants of the world, known as the Death Korps of Krieg, are fatalistic soldiers whose appearance and insignia are largely based on the German militaries of WWI and WWII.

The songs in the search results were dark and, in hindsight, disturbingly prescient.

The top result was a song that referred to “a suicide mission” and included lines such as, “Here, corpses are winners...our deaths have been assigned — and I choose mine...through our pile of corpses, triumph we shall gain.”

Another top search result featured an image of an iron cross and a song that began, “I’ve got the reach and the teeth of a killin’ machine.” Other lyrics include, “I’ll bring death to the place you’re about to be: another river of blood runnin’ under my feet."

It's unclear if that's what police saw. But whatever they saw led to a referral to the FBI’s joint terrorism task force.

‘No, no, no,’ she screamed

Later that month, Sheila said she received a phone call from FBI task force officer Matt Stevenson. He needed to talk to her. They agreed to meet at the Propylaeum, where she worked at the time. The interview took place in his car, Sheila said.

He asked her about what police saw on her son’s computer. She showed him the Krieg song search page. Then Sheila said he asked her a series of questions.

Is he a loner?

Yes, she said.

Does he have a girlfriend?

No, she said.

Does he get on 4chan, an anonymous internet forum?

Yes, she said.

Does he talk to people online?

No, she said, but he does get on Omegle, a website that randomly pairs strangers in anonymous one-on-one chats.

After answering all his questions, Sheila said Stevenson said something that burned in her brain.

He said her son hit every red flag for a mass shooter.

“No, no, no," Sheila screamed.

She said she told Stevenson to go take his computer and arrest him. Stevenson told her he needed to talk to him first, she said.

Her friend and co-worker, Janice Radford, told IndyStar she saw Sheila get out of Stevenson’s car. Sheila told her what Stevenson said.

“She was extremely upset,” Radford said. “She was crying. She was shaking. I had never seen her that upset before.”

Another FBI interview

A few weeks later, in mid-April of 2020, Sheila said Stevenson and another member of the task force showed up at her home one morning.

The interaction that followed — as relayed by Sheila Hole — raises questions about whether the FBI's involvement accomplished anything other than unwittingly antagonizing a person its task force officer had already described as exhibiting characteristics of a mass shooter. 

She doesn’t remember the entire conversation. IndyStar sent the FBI a list of questions about the exchange, but the bureau would not comment. Here's what Sheila Hole told IndyStar she does remember. 

Stevenson asked her son why he bought the shotgun. He told him he bought it to kill himself.

Stevenson then asked about his internet activities. He acknowledged using 4chan. He told Stevenson it wasn’t all bad, some things were funny.

Then Stevenson asked a question that, to Sheila, seemed to come out of nowhere.

Did he like My Little Pony?

He said he did.

His mom was startled. She was unaware of so-called Bronies: adult fans of the animated children’s series. Many members of the subculture genuinely enjoy watching the show with its bright colors and positive messages. But since the subculture’s inception on 4chan, there have always been strains of sexualization and racism.

Sheila said Stevenson went on to say My Little Pony message sites were a way for neo-Nazis to talk to each other and make plans. He asked her son if he had talked to anyone on those sites. He insisted he hadn’t. He told Stevenson he could take his computer, Sheila said.

It was the third time Sheila or her son had offered the computer to law enforcement. And for the third time, they declined, she said. 

Stevenson then asked him what he was going to do with his life. The teen suggested he could work for the FBI, help them out.

Sheila said Stevenson shot him down. You need to get your mental health together, she remembers Stevenson saying.

As they left, Sheila heard Stevenson say something over his shoulder: Don’t hit your mom. She had nothing to do with this.

As soon as they were gone, her son became agitated, furious.

“Why didn’t you say something,” he screamed. “How come you let him talk to me like that?”

‘They don’t have a flag on me’

The run-in with police and the FBI became an obsession. How dare they? he felt. Their questions humiliated him. Especially the accusation that he was a neo-Nazi.

“Let’s just try to go one day not talking or thinking about it,” Sheila told him.

That summer, he told her he wanted to move out of their home. Sheila thought it might be good for him. Living on his own might help with his obsessive tendencies and his anger. 

They put a down payment on a trailer on the west side, close to his aunt. 

Now that he was on his own, he needed protection, he later told his mom. 

He was going to a gun store.

On July 7, 2020, she went with him to Indy Arms Company on East 55th Street. She told IndyStar she went because she didn’t believe they’d sell him a firearm. After what happened in March, she was sure he’d been “red flagged.” 

If he comes out furious, she thought, I don’t want him driving. If he comes out furious, she thought, he’ll probably beat me.

Sheila didn’t go in with him. She chain-smoked Marlboro Lights outside in the car. Ten cigarettes — and less than 20 minutes — after he walked in, he walked out with an HM Defense rifle. 

"My emotions were off the charts," she said. 

He was smiling.

“They don’t have a flag on me,” he told his mom. 

For a second, she was relieved. The fact that he could buy a gun suggested the FBI didn’t act on what Stevenson told her. Maybe federal law enforcement didn’t really think her son was a mass shooter. And seeing him happy was like coming across an oasis after years of wandering.

Then reality set in. Her suicidal son had a firearm again. 

‘I don’t see any white supremacists doing anything’

On Aug. 19, 2020, one day before his 19th birthday, he would have one last known interaction with law enforcement.

That day, Sheila was driving her son home from the dentist when she looked over and saw he had Stevenson's business card in his hands. He was dialing his number.

She reached over and tried to stop him. He pushed her hand away and called Stevenson multiple times. Sheila told IndyStar that when they finally connected, her son went on a rant.

“How can you bring your personal opinion into an investigation?” he asked Stevenson. “What side should I join if you gonna label me?”

Then Sheila said her son shifted the conversation to race. 

“You’re labeling me a neo-Nazi white supremacist but you got the FBI kneeling to Black Lives Matter,” he said. “And I don’t see any white supremacists doing anything. But Black Lives Matter are out here burning, rioting.”

He's losing his shit, Sheila thought. 

She figured the unhinged call would place him back on the FBI's radar. But as far as she knows, that phone call ended the FBI's involvement with her son.

When IndyStar reached out to the FBI after he shot and killed eight people, the bureau would only say it had previously concluded he had displayed no Racially Motivated Violent Extremism ideology.

The next day, Sheila and her son did nothing. He didn’t feel like celebrating what would be his final birthday. 

New job at FedEx

That August, he started a new job at the FedEx ground facility near the Indianapolis International Airport. He liked it there. 

Sheila spoke with him over the phone almost every morning "to keep him calm, help him see things can and will get better,” she said. He "seems good," she wrote in her journal. 

But there was one thing he didn't tell her. In September 2020 he purchased a second rifle — a Ruger AR-556. Sheila said she later learned he purchased it at the Indy Trading Post on Madison Avenue. 

About that same time, he told her he hadn't shown up to work for a few days. He assumed he was fired. He couldn’t get out of bed, he said. It was probably his depression, Sheila told IndyStar.

But then he went to FedEx to pick up his last paycheck and found out he wasn’t fired after all. He returned to work. 

By October, he had stopped showing up to work for good.

‘No guns in the house’

He started having second thoughts about living on his own. He wanted to move back, he told his mom in February 2021. 

She said he could. But he had to go to counseling. 

He agreed. On March 19, they went to an Eskenazi Health clinic. Sheila sat in the waiting room. Her son sat in the car outside, rocking back and forth. He was “highly agitated,” Sheila said.

Hours passed. His name was never called. 

Sheila approached a staff member. “I’m willing to sit here until you guys close,” she said. “He needs to be seen.”

It doesn’t look like they’re going to get to him today, staff told Sheila. 

She started to cry. 

Four hours passed. They never saw a mental health professional. But before they left they received good news. He was put on the schedule for the following Monday. 

That morning, he met with a social worker at Eskenazi Health’s clinic on Crawfordsville Road. It was the first time he’d seen a counselor in almost a decade. 

The five pages of notes from that session are thoroughly detailed. He had generalized anxiety disorder, panic attacks, recurrent major depressive disorder and chronic suicidal ideation, the notes say. He had obsessive-compulsive tendencies, poor anger control and impaired social functioning.

“Involvement with FBI and IMPD terrorism unit was traumatizing,” the notes say. Around the time of that incident he tried to hang himself, he told the counselor.

He also told the social worker he excessively worried “about everything, financial problems, my mental state.”

“I worry that I could kill myself one day.” 

Medication for psychiatric symptoms would be good for him, the notes say. But he was never given medication, according to Sheila. And his records never indicate he received a prescription. 

He was deemed a “moderate risk” and given a suicide prevention safety plan. 

One of the plan's steps: “No guns in the house.” 

‘Doesn’t care about the lives of others’

Nine days later, on March 31, he met with a different Eskenazi Health social worker.

He told the social worker "he doesn’t have empathy; he doesn’t care about the lives of others even his own mother,” the Eskenazi therapy notes say. 

His run-ins with IMPD and the FBI the previous year came up again. He said he was intimidated. They were too intrusive. The experiences "made him very angry towards society and law enforcement," the notes say. 

His most recent suicide attempt also came up in greater detail. He tried to hang himself but failed. He didn’t have the rope positioned correctly. 

He took a suicide risk assessment test with the social worker. “Risk was not identified,” according to the therapy notes.

‘You’re not going to like this’

He met with the social worker again on April 14, 2021 — the day before the shooting.

The last counseling session of his life focused on “strategies to address anger issues,” according to the social worker's therapy notes. 

He told her he might be bipolar. He said he might be a "vulnerable narcissist."

He also asked if his mom could then join them. Sheila told the social worker about March 3, 2020, when IMPD came to their home after Sheila reported her son to authorities, the therapy notes say.

Sheila said she didn't realize he'd "be able to own a gun so soon," according to the notes. 

She talked about his obsessive-compulsive disorder and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, and how they affected him in elementary school. 

The social worker also noted that one of the triggers that remains is that no one is allowed to touch his Applejack plush toy. He "said he loves ‘My Little Pony,’” the notes say. 

Although not reflected in the notes, Sheila told IndyStar he brought up white supremacism. 

“You’re not gonna like this,” he told the social worker, who is Black. “They labeled me a white supremacist.” 

When the social worker didn’t react, he continued.

“You’re not gonna like this either,” he said. “I’m not a white supremacist, but if I was, that would be my legal right to be one.” 

Sheila said her son gave a warning, also not reflected in the notes: "I have no empathy for anyone. I’m a danger to society. Society should be afraid of me."

Sheila started crying. She said she told the social worker, "He needs help."

The social worker patted her on the shoulder, Sheila said, and said, "We'll get him. He'll be fine." 

The social worker did not respond to inquiries from IndyStar, including a note left at an address associated with her in public records. A spokesperson for Eskenazi also declined to answer specific questions about the counseling sessions, citing patient privacy requirements.

The FedEx shooting

The following night, after his haircut and bath, he made his final post on Facebook. His account was later taken down at the request of Indianapolis police, but the post was referenced in an internal Facebook memo reviewed by the Wall Street Journal.

It featured the image of a cartoon pony and was timestamped 10:19 p.m.

“I hope that I can be with Applejack in the afterlife, my life has no meaning without her,” the post said. “If there’s no afterlife and she isn’t real then my life never mattered anyway.”

Less than an hour later, he pulled into the parking lot of his former employer. Police said he likely chose FedEx simply because he was familiar with it. 

The massive facility near the Indianapolis International Airport was bustling with activity. 

He went into the building and spoke with security, then returned to his car. He retrieved the two rifles he had purchased and began to spray gunfire. He killed four people outside. Four more inside the building. Five others were injured. 

The massacre lasted about four minutes. Then he killed himself. 

‘An act of suicidal murder’

After the shooting, the FBI reappeared. This time, they were tasked with trying to figure out why it had happened.

Along with Indianapolis police and the U.S. attorney's office, the bureau conducted more than 120 interviews, issued more than 20 search warrants and subpoenas and reviewed more than 150 pieces of evidence.

They also pored over his computer and other devices. 

They discovered about 200 files with German military and Nazi content. However, they noted, that was “an extremely small percentage” of the roughly 175,000 files they reviewed.

Despite that content, the agency announced in July that the killer's motivation did not appear to be based on bias or the desire to advance any ideology. That had been a major concern of the Sikh community, who lost four of its members in the shooting.  

Instead, the FBI called his actions “an act of suicidal murder” intended to “demonstrate his masculinity and capability while fulfilling a final desire to experience killing people.”

Experts weigh in

It will never be known for sure if a more successful law enforcement or mental health intervention may have prevented the shooting.

That said, mental health experts asked by IndyStar to review the medical records and therapy notes had harsh criticism. 

"There was a tremendous failure to address the complexity and gravity of his mental disorder," said Lieberman, chairman of the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University and a former president of the American Psychiatric Association.

The diagnostic evaluations were "inadequate," Lieberman continued. The treatment he received focused on symptoms, not underlying issues. Those could have been uncovered through a deeper neuro-psychological assessment and questions about his developmental history, he said.

He compared the treatment to someone who is given aspirin to quell a fever, or cough medicine to treat a cough, even though the cause of those symptoms is pneumonia or a strep infection.

If he indeed said he was a danger to society and that society should be afraid of him, it should have "set off all kinds of alarms," Lieberman said. 

"You immediately act to restrain, admit or take them under observation." They should also be reported to law enforcement, he said. And if you think the statement is vague, you need to ask more specific questions to determine if the person is a danger, he added.

Christine Sarteschi, a professor of social work and criminology who has written extensively about mass murder, said the discrepancy between the medical records and Sheila's account of what he said during his final counseling session is "worrisome."

Miscommunications do happen. But if such a statement was made, Sarteschi said, it should have been included in the notes.

She was also surprised he was never deemed more than at moderate risk for suicide when social workers saw him in the spring. "He did seem like a high risk to me," she said. "For sure."

"To me, it's a system failure," she said. "And until we, as a society realize that we can't continue to operate and have a mental health system that has so many gaps in it, and holes in it, I worry that this kind of thing will continue."

‘I grieve those people’

On a recent Tuesday afternoon, Sheila's eyes followed a delivery vehicle as it passed in front of her porch and down the street.

"Every time I turn around there’s the FedEx truck." 

She can be found here most days. Sitting outside on the porch. 

Waiting. Though she’s not sure for what.

For lawyers representing the victims’ families to pull up, step across her driveway and tell her it’s time for her to talk. 

For a victim’s family member to pull up and shoot her. 

She wouldn't blame them if they did. Whatever the families want. 

During her trips in public she carries copies of a police report that she hands out to people who approach her. It's the report that details law enforcement's concern he was a danger to himself and others.

So much so that they took his shotgun that day. So much so that they took him to the hospital.

It's how she tells people he was within the grasp of those who might have prevented the city's deadliest mass shooting. 

She wants people to understand that she tried.

And she wants her son to know that when she cries these days, it’s not for him. It's for the victims.

“I grieve those people," she would tell her son if she had the chance, "more than I ever will you.” 

By Johnny Magdaleno and Tony Cook

A report obtained by IndyStar after a public records fight with Indianapolis police shows FedEx shooter Brandon Hole was accused of punching his mother in the face and stabbing her with a table knife in 2013.

The police report raises new questions about why prosecutors did not present Hole's violent past to a judge and argue for his gun rights to be suspended when police detained Hole in March 2020. Hole's mother told police that month he was threatening suicide-by-cop, leading officers to confiscate a shotgun from him.  

When police seize a gun under Indiana’s “red flag” law, the incident is supposed to be brought before a judge to determine if the person wielding the weapon is dangerous. If the judge finds that they are dangerous, police can keep the gun and the person is prohibited from possessing firearms or purchasing new ones.

But in Hole’s case, prosecutors declined to take the case to court. As a result, Hole was later able to buy the two rifles he used to fatally shoot eight people and injure five others at the FedEx ground facility in southwest Indianapolis on April 15. The shooting ended when Hole killed himself.

Marion County Prosecutor Ryan Mears has deflected criticism for not doing more to stop Hole. During a news conference in the days after the shooting, he said his office didn't have access to evidence strong enough to convince a judge Hole was a danger to himself or others.

A police report documenting the 2020 encounter described Hole's suicidal claims and allegations he had hit his mom. Police also saw what they described as white supremacist websites on Hole's computer. 

It's unclear whether Mears' office was aware of the 2013 incident when it decided not to file a red flag case in 2020. When asked if prosecutors took the earlier incident into account, an office spokesperson declined to comment, referring reporters to the office's past comments.

"In this particular situation," Mears said during the April news conference, "we had a case where it was just a single incident. There were not many other incidents that were reported to us."

But there was another violent incident — the one documented in the 2013 police report.

What the report says

The report was originally requested by IndyStar in April after Hole committed the FedEx shooting. In response, police provided a copy in May that was almost totally blacked out. It showed little information except that officers arrested a juvenile male in May 2013 for allegations of battery, intimidation and criminal confinement. 

He was 11 years old. 

The full details of the incident weren’t made available until Monday, when Indianapolis police turned over a largely unredacted version of the report. The disclosure came after IndyStar filed a formal public records complaint with the Indiana Public Access Counselor, who found that the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department failed to meet its burden for withholding the report.

At 8:07 p.m. on May 16, 2013, Indianapolis police officer Aaron Schlesinger responded to a disturbance involving a juvenile at a home in the city's east side where Hole's family was living at the time. Schlesinger found a man named Keith Larson sitting outside the address.

Larson said Brandon Hole, his girlfriend's son, had mental issues and was inside "tearing up the house."

Moments earlier Hole and Larson were allegedly having a water fight. Hole "became angry" after Larson sprayed him with a hose, Larson said. The 11-year-old went inside the house and Larson followed, setting off a verbal argument. 

Hole left the house. Then he came back inside with the hose and started spraying Larson. He left again and started kicking Larson's car before walking towards East 10th Street. Larson intervened by chasing after Hole, picking him up by the shoulders and carrying him back inside the house. He feared for Hole's safety, Larson told the officer.

Hole yelled at Larson to get out of the house. Larson left, leaving Hole inside the house with his mother, Sheila.

A fight escalates. A mom is assaulted.

Hole was yelling and screaming inside the home. He ran into the bathroom and locked himself inside.

His mother heard him destroying items in the bathroom. She told him to come outside. He refused. 

She went into the kitchen and grabbed a table knife. Back at the bathroom she used the knife to pick the lock. Hole stopped destroying things after she opened the door. Then he charged at her. 

"Brandon began to physically assault his mother by punching her twice on both sides of the face, slapping her several times to both sides of the face, kicked her legs, and then grabbed her left arm and bit her on the forearm," Schlesinger wrote in the report. 

Hole ran to the kitchen. His mother followed him. When she entered the kitchen, "Brandon proceeded to again slap, punch, and kick Ms. Hole," Schlesinger wrote. 

Hole went to the silverware drawer and pulled out two table knives. He tried to stab his mom. She tried to evade him but he stabbed her on her right forearm, causing a small laceration. 

When Hole approached his mother again she stepped out of the kitchen and into the family room. He sat on a chair between the two areas. Both knives were in his hands. He wouldn't let her leave. 

That's when Schlesinger knocked on the door and identified himself as the police. 

The police respond

"If you answer the door, I'll stab you," Hole allegedly told his mother. 

"Fearing for her safety and life and believing that Brandon would follow thru on his threat, she stayed in the family room," Schlesinger wrote. 

Hole eventually put the knives down. He answered the door. He was still agitated, Schlesinger wrote, but he let the officer into the house.

Hole's mother didn't have any visible injuries on her head, face or legs. But Schlesinger did observe the faint outline of teeth on her left forearm and the laceration on her right arm. She complained of pain. 

Hole was arrested and transported to juvenile detention by a Marion County sheriff's wagon. 

"Deeply troubled" 

Four of the eight people Hole killed at FedEx were followers of the Sikh religion, prompting the Sikh Coalition, a national organization, to press law enforcement to investigate the April 15 mass shooting as a hate crime.

After reviewing the 2013 police report, the organization's legal director Amrith Kaur Aakre told IndyStar it's clear Hole was "deeply troubled." 

"It is disappointing that the system failed to adequately address the combination of issues he suffered from when he was a child, and continued to fail to recognize his mental health issues and propensities for violence as he grew up and kept weapons in his home," Aakre said in a prepared statement.

"Hopefully, there are hard lessons learned here," she added, "lessons that can serve as a wake-up call not to ignore these warnings in the future so this type of tragedy doesn't happen again."

In September IndyStar raised the issue with the Marion County Prosecutor's Office again. Reporters asked the office why it didn't feel Hole should have gone in front of a judge for a red flag determination.

"The detective spoke with the mom as part of the investigation," deputy prosecutor Robert Beatson said, referring to the March 2020 incident. "And after speaking with her, the complaining witness and the potential respondent, we made the decision in agreement with IMPD that it did not merit the filing of a red flag case."

IndyStar pressed Beatson on the 2013 assault, allegations that he struck his mother in 2020 and her statements that he had threatened suicide by cop. Beatson repeated himself. "In conjunction with IMPD, we decided that it was not a case that merited a red flag filing."

IndyStar again followed up with the office for their response to the just-released full copy of the 2013 police report. 

"We have provided information and an interview on this matter," a spokesperson for the office said. "We have no further comment at this time."

Hole's mother, Sheila, took issue with their explanation. 

"I told them he needed help" 

Sheila Hole told IndyStar she thought she made herself clear by demanding police intervene in March 2020 to stop her child from killing himself. She provided IndyStar with a copy of the immediate detention report created by Indianapolis police when they took Hole to Eskenazi Hospital following his suicidal claims. 

"IMPD wrote on there he was a danger to himself and others on the immediate detention report. What did they mean? They spoke with me here," Hole said. "And I told them he needed help." 

The report, filled out by detective Robert Robinson on March 3, 2020, shows he checked boxes indicating he had reasonable grounds to believe Hole was a danger to himself and others. Robinson also attested that he believed Hole was suffering from a psychiatric disorder.

At Eskenazi Hospital Brandon Hole told a doctor he felt fine and did not feel like hurting himself or anyone else. He was discharged that same day.

IndyStar asked Sheila Hole if she said anything to discourage authorities from filing a red flag case in court.

"Absolutely not," she said. 

She was upset her son had been released from the hospital so quickly and received no treatment or medication. She was also upset that her son had been provided with a copy of the immediate detention report, which showed that she had reported his physical abuse. That made Brandon angry, she said. When he got home from the hospital, she said he hit her again.

So when IMPD behavioral health officers showed up at their home a couple days after the March 2020 incident, she was frustrated and scared. She didn't want her son to attack her again. She asked the officers to leave.

"Because I had felt the wrath of their help two days before that," she said. "I did not need any more of that.”

By Johnny Magdaleno and Elizabeth DePompei

On the same day Marion County Prosecutor Ryan Mears gave a news conference slamming Indiana's red flag law for not giving him enough time to build a court case against the FedEx shooter, his office filed a red flag case in court that it had been sitting on for 44 days against another potentially dangerous person.

That filing was just the beginning.

An IndyStar review of IMPD weapons seizure data and red flag case information found that the prosecutor's office nearly tripled the number of red flag filings it made in court in the weeks following the FedEx shooting, when compared with the number of cases it filed in the first three months of the year.  

In some cases, the office didn’t file a red flag petition until more than a month after police warned the prosecutor that the person posed a risk to themselves or others. 

Mears declined multiple requests for an interview. When presented with IndyStar's findings, Michael Leffler, a spokesperson for the office, provided the following statement: 

"We know this law has prevented suicides, but clearly more needs to be done in the community to help individuals with mental health issues. We will continue to advocate for the legislature to address the limitations and loopholes of the law."

Indiana's red flag law allows law enforcement to remove firearms from people they believe are dangerous. After that seizure, a prosecutor can present evidence against them to a judge, who ultimately determines whether the individual is such a danger that his or her name should be sent to the FBI. Doing so blocks the individual from legally purchasing a firearm in the future.

Mears' sudden reliance on red flag filings contrasts with his past comments. He has long contended that the law has significant timing weaknesses: that his office only gets 14 days to prepare for a hearing against a red flag target and that the person can still purchase a firearm while that hearing is pending.

He told reporters those loopholes undercut his confidence in how effective the law could be in court — particularly in the case of Brandon Scott Hole, the FedEx shooter, who landed on the radar of law enforcement in March 2020 after IMPD took a shotgun from him through a red flag seizure.

Mears did not follow up with a red flag petition in court against Hole. That may have stopped him from purchasing the two rifles he used to kill eight people and himself at the FedEx Ground facility in April.

"I think people hear red flag and they think it's the panacea to all these issues. It's not," Mears said in April after the shooting. "What it is, is a good start where there's a number of loopholes and the practical application of this law does not necessarily give everyone the tools they need to make the most well-informed decision."

That said, in the days after making those comments, Mears' office began filing red flag petitions in court at an unprecedented rate, according to red flag court data from Jan. 1 to May 6.

On April 19, the office told reporters it had filed red flag petitions against eight individuals in court in 2021. Two and a half weeks later, that number had suddenly jumped to 22 petitions, far outpacing the monthly rhythm at which the office was filing petitions during the first part of the year. 

It is unknown whether IMPD also increased its red flag seizures in the weeks following FedEx. But eight of the 14 cases filed by the prosecutor's office after the shooting involved individuals that had been intervened by police prior to the shooting. Four of those cases were filed in a three-day timespan: from April 19, the date Mears gave a news conference, to April 21. 

Indianapolis Fraternal Order of Police President Rick Snyder, who railed against Mears' decision to not pursue red flag proceedings against Hole, said the increase in filings is surprising, particularly if IMPD red flag seizures remained steady after the FedEx shooting. 

"I would say I'm stunned that it's that significant" of an increase, he said. "It's just very, very telling."

Snyder previously said the system didn't fail in the 2020 case involving Hole. "The prosecutor didn't give the system a chance," he told IndyStar.

"It leads one to wonder, did the number of filings dramatically increase because of the tragedy or is it more because it was revealed as to where the shortfalls in the system were lying?" Snyder said.

In six of the cases filed after the FedEx shooting, IMPD had warned the prosecutor's office about the person before Hole opened fire on the logistics facility. But the office didn't act until after that event.

Three red flag petitions from 2021 experienced delays of a month or longer before the prosecutor's office placed them in front of a judge.

In one case, the prosecutor's office waited 44 days to request a judge bar the gun rights of a suicidal male who was placed under immediate detention and had a semiautomatic Diamondback rifle confiscated by IMPD, according to IMPD data. The office filed that petition in court on the same day of Mears' news conference, during which he blamed aspects of the law for his reluctance to file a petition against Hole.  

Prosecutors tend to agree with Mears. Bradley Keffer, a former Marion County deputy prosecutor who now works as a criminal defense attorney, told IndyStar that the court timeline laid out in the law prevents prosecutors from building a strong case against anyone. 

"You're looking at a lot of procedural investigative tools that are just simply not available in that short of timeframe," he told IndyStar, referring to legal considerations such as subpoenas for medical records.

It is worth noting that the law is not hard-and-fast about the 14-day hearing timeframe, however. Courts have to make a "good faith effort" to hold a hearing within 14 days "or as soon as possible," to quote the law. 

But Jennifer Lukemeyer, a criminal defense attorney who has represented clients in five red flag cases, said the types of delays seen in Marion County may constitute a violation of due process.

"You could make that argument," Lukemeyer said. "Especially if you're able to say this information that they're now trying to seize it on is stale, you know, because they don't have that direct nexus and the timing is not there."

Keffer agreed. 

"Certainly you could make the argument that the seizure doesn't comport with statute," he said. "And that the affidavit isn't appropriately filed."

Mears is not alone in holding up the process. The suicidal male with a semiautomatic rifle was intervened by police in early February. IMPD didn't put the incident in front of the prosecutor's office until 23 days after they confiscated his weapon.

Indiana's red flag law says a probable cause affidavit must be filed with a court within 48 hours after a firearm is seized. But in at least 11 of the cases that Mears' office filed in court this year, police did not inform the prosecutor about the person until days or weeks after they had already taken their firearm.

IMPD did not respond to IndyStar's request for an interview. When asked about the delays on IMPD's end, spokesperson Lt. Shane Foley provided the following statement: 

"We cannot comment on specific cases, but our detectives have been following the process required in Marion County. We have since worked with our criminal justice partners to refine the process, which now requires law enforcement to submit a probable cause affidavit directly to the court after seizing a weapon during a Jake Laird law investigation."

A spokesperson for the Marion County court system confirmed that the red flag process has been updated. Until May it was at odds with Indiana's red flag law.

The Marion County judge who reviews red flag petitions, Amy Jones, led the overhaul with feedback from the prosecutor and law enforcement. Now IMPD must go directly to judges with a probable cause affidavit — meaning red flag seizures may now be in line with the law as legislators intended when they passed it in 2005 and updated it in 2019.

How 2021 red flag cases compare to Hole

The red flag petitions presented to a judge this year tell the tragic stories of people struggling, often in plain view of law enforcement, to get through mental health crises, according to law enforcement affidavits reviewed by IndyStar. 

A military veteran with PTSD experiencing war flashbacks. A son diagnosed with bipolar disorder as a teen. A 21-year-old who had survived a suicide attempt the year before. A wife who suspects her husband has schizophrenia.

Police officers arrived to one scene in August where they found a woman with a belt tightened around her left leg as she tried to stop a gunshot wound on her thigh from bleeding.

"She wouldn't leave," the red flag suspect told police, "so I shot her one time." 

Those dramatic encounters may be unlike what IMPD experienced when officers visited Hole's house in March 2020. In the report of IMPD's interaction with Hole from that time, police said Hole "downplayed" suicidal thoughts but admitted he was feeling sad and depressed. There's no information about a diagnosis or history of mental illness. The report only mentions that Hole's dad died by suicide when Hole was three years old. 

Indiana's law says that a mental health diagnosis on its own isn't enough to justify removing someone's weapon. But it does weigh against them in court if they show violent behavior or make threats and a firearm is involved.

"The bulk of the state's case,' Keffer explained, "is going to circle around what those officers experienced when they were interacting with this individual."

IMPD also interviews family members, witnesses and in some cases the target of the red flag seizure in the days following the incident. Those follow-ups provide the substance that law enforcement use to craft a court narrative arguing that the person is dangerous.

"A person like that don't need no gun," one family member told law enforcement in a follow-up interview in April. IMPD had removed a firearm from her grandson after he became violent during a schizophrenic episode.

Because Mears did not file a red flag petition in court against Hole, there is no court narrative describing Hole's past that can be compared with the cases filed this year.

IMPD said police followed up days later, but no police report was made, and no affidavit was filed to a judge. It's unknown what more, if anything, was revealed during those follow-ups.