Greenwood police release contents of mall gunman’s phone
INDIANAPOLIS (WISH) — The gunman in the Greenwood Park Mall shooting last July had images of Hitler, Nazi propaganda, videos of mass killings, and suicidal notes on his cellphone.
This according to a press release issued Thursday by the Greenwood Police Department.
Police updated the media on the phone, which has been in the hands of the FBI in Quantico VA since the shooting took place on July 17, 2022.
In May 2023 the FBI was successful in unlocking the cellphone and extracting the data stored on the phone.
There were 206 videos, and 3458 images recovered. Also recovered were notes kept on the phone, call & text logs, and internet searches.
Many of the images and videos were of the same nature reported in previous press conferences regarding social media posts.
There were many pictures of Adolf Hitler, Nazi propaganda, and firearms. Many of the videos extracted were of mass killings and extremely graphic in nature.
One of the videos was security camera footage of the mass shooting that occurred at the Cascade Mall in Burlington Washington on September 23, 2016.
The most notable discovery was an image of a handwritten note taken on April 9th 2020.
The note appears to be a suicide note written by the gunman.
The note begins with, “My final thoughts on paper.” In the note the gunman wrote, “I’m a sociopath. I want to hurt people.”
He alluded to shooting himself with a shotgun and cited the reasons for his actions as, “This was the result of my issues: mental instability, depression, frustration, and sexual isolation.”
Police say they believe that the fact that the note was written two years prior to the Greenwood Park Mall shooting leads them to believe the gunman’s homicidal and suicidal thoughts had been manifesting for years.
Also extracted was a note written by the gunman on June 18, 2022. It appears the note was a draft of a text that he was going to send to his brother. In the note the gunman expresses his frustration about his phone being turned off.
The gunman then wrote, “I’m gonna shoot myself.” On the same day the gunman conducted an internet search titled, “how to go through with committing suicide.”
Police say nothing located on the phone was related to the Greenwood Park Mall or the gunman’s plans to carry out the attack on July 17, 2022.
The gunamn was fatally shot by an armed shopper shortly after he opened fire in the food court of Greenwood Park Mall around the mall’s closing time in the city just south of Indianapolis.
A married Indianapolis couple — Pedro Pineda, 56, and Rosa Mirian Rivera de Pineda, 37 — and Victor Gomez, 30, also of Indianapolis, were killed. A woman shot in the leg and a 12-year-old girl who was hit by shrapnel were wounded in the attack, police said.
The FBI said in August that data could not be recovered from a laptop the gunman had placed in the oven at his apartment with a can of butane before leaving to commit the shooting. The oven was on and set at a high temperature that damaged the laptop beyond forensic analysis.