Lawsuit targets high-capacity magazine used in Indianapolis FedEx mass shooting
ROCHESTER, New York (WISH) — A group of people connected to the mass shooting in April 2021 at a FedEx facility in Indianapolis have sued the maker and the distributors of a high-capacity ammunition magazine used by the killer.
The complaint was filed Thursday in U.S. District Court in Rochester, N.Y., by attorneys for the estate of Jaswinder Singh, who died in the shooting; Harpreet Singh and Lakhwinder Kaur, who were wounded; and Singh’s wife, Dilpreet Kaur.
Eight people were killed in the mass shooting reported to Indianapolis police shortly before 11:10 p.m. April 15, 2021, at the FedEx facility at 8951 Mirabel Road, just south of the I-70 interchange at AmeriPlex Parkway. At least five people were wounded, Indianapolis police have reported.
The 19-year-old shooter killed himself inside the building after he’d fired at people in the warehouse.
The lawsuit seeks a jury trial to present the complaint against South Carolina-headquartered distributor American Tactical Inc.; its president and marketing director; Germany-headquartered magazine manufacturer Schmeisser GmbH; and a distributor of Schmeisser GmbH accessories, Slovenia-based 365 Plus.
The lawsuit also seeks monetary damages, and an injunction to stop the supply of high-capacity ammunition magazines (HCMs) to the public without safeguards.
The complaint says it was filed in New York where American Tactical is incorporated. State officials in 2021 passed a law to allow civil cases against the gun industry by calling the illegal marketing and sale of firearms a “public nuisance.”
The lawsuit says HCMs are marketed to young men who feel the need to harm others to prove their strength and who have militaristic delusions of fighting in a war or a video game.
The complaint also says that HCMs “are not necessary, or even useful, for lawful self-defense or hunting. They are, however, very useful for killing large numbers of people quickly, before the user can be stopped as he reloads.”
The killer in the FedEx fired all 60 rounds in the Schmeisser GmbH magazine in a matter of seconds from an AR-15-style firearm, the lawsuit says. It also reports that the killer armed himself with multiple HCMs.
“While soldiers in a combat zone may need to shoot many people quickly, HCMs in the civilian context are, as a practical matter, useful only to engage in mass assaults on other civilians or law enforcement — that is, mass shootings,” the lawsuit continues. “This case is about what happens when companies recklessly design, market, sell, and distribute these accessories to the general public — indiscriminately and without adherence to reasonable safeguards.”
Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department reported a few days after the mass shooting that the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives conducted a trace on the weapons the killer had, and learned he had legally bought them in July and September of 2020.
The lawsuit was filed a day before the NRA planned to begin its annual meetings in Indianapolis. American Tactical is listed as an exhibitor at the event at the Indiana Convention Center.
A spokesman for American Tactical told News 8 by email on Thursday afternoon that the company has no comment at this time.
In a statement shared by his lawyers, Singh’s son wrote:
“American Tactical, Inc. is well aware that these magazines are instruments of mass killing and have no problem marketing them directly to people with horrific intentions. This isn’t a hypothetical. My father is gone because they didn’t care they were enabling mass shooters. They have to be held accountable not just for my father’s sake but everyone who may still suffer what my family and I have been forced to go through.”
Gurinder Singh Bains, son of Jaswinder Singh who died in the FedEx shooting