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Indianapolis Star
a day ago
- Indianapolis Star
FBI releases records about FedEx mass shooter. Here's what they show
Four years after a mass shooting left nine people dead at a FedEx facility in Indianapolis, the FBI is beginning to release records that provide a behind-the-scenes look at law enforcement's interactions with the killer. The records, which IndyStar first requested in 2021, include 147 heavily redacted pages. They confirm that 19-year-old Brandon Hole was on the FBI's radar more than a year before he murdered eight employees and killed himself at his former workplace on April 15, 2021. As early as March 4, 2020, the FBI opened an assessment of Hole for possible adherence to racially motivated violent extremism. The assessment began when IMPD seized a shotgun from Hole's residence after his mother reported that he had threatened suicide by cop. During the intervention, officers "observed computer monitors in Brandon's bedroom that displayed opened websites related to Nazi and Neo-Nazi killings along with a popular Neo-Nazi 4-chan forum that uses the moniker 'My Little Pony'. The forum was in German and a German to English translator website was converting the messages in the forum." In an email, an FBI task force officer said IMPD officers told him there were "20 tabs of nazi related material" and that Hole was posting on a forum about a gun he had recently purchased. Agents interviewed Hole on April 21, 2020, at his mother's home. He denied having extremist views and said his father killed himself when Hole was 3 years old. Hole said he played video games such as Warhammer 40,000, which has scenes of German soldiers fighting with gasmasks, and belonged to an Internet group for adult fans of the animated children's series ''My Little Pony." Members of the forum are also known as "Bronies" and while some genuinely enjoy watching the show with its bright colors and positive messages, it has also been a home for sexual, violent and racist fan art. Hole told the FBI agent he "enjoys Anime related to the TV Show." "Hole seemed to already know that some followers/fans of My Little Pony have been tied to White Supremacy, but denied any affiliation," according to the FBI's summary of the interview. Two days later, the FBI closed the assessment, noting Hole did not warrant further investigation. Read the records: Here's what the FBI has released so far on FedEx shooter Brandon Hole A few months later, on Aug. 19, 2020, Hole called the FBI task force officer who had previously interviewed him. He demanded to know why the FBI had interviewed him. Hole asked the officer if he "kneeled at BLM protests like other cops, and asked if White Supremacy was illegal." The records are consistent with IndyStar's reporting in 2021 that identified multiple warning signs and failed interventions in the months leading up to the massacre. That included more than a dozen mental health care and law enforcement encounters. The reporting was part of a series, "Red Flagged," that identified numerous instances where police and prosecutors had failed to understand and enforce Indiana's red flag law. The project was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. The newly released records show that after the FedEx shooting, the FBI re-opened its investigation. During a walk-through of Hole's home the day after the shooting, agents made the following observations: "All four walls of the bedroom contained blankets, posters, tapestries, and painted murals of 'My Little Pony' characters. The bed was 'My Little Pony' themed and had a large stuffed animal of one of the characters from the tv show. In the closet there was the torso of a mannequin dangling from a hanger. This mannequin had a dress on it. Also in the closet was a box adorned with what appeared to be Japanese writing and a picture of a sex doll. In this bedroom, there was no visible literature, pictures, symbols, or trinkets that would be apparent representation of an extremist ideology." The records show agents also called or visited multiple gun stores in an effort to learn more about Hole's activities. Agents traced a Ruger AR-556 rifle that Hole purchased before the shooting to Indy Trading Post at 2851 Madison Ave. The store has since closed. Several records released by the FBI pertain to interviews agents conducted in May 2021 with employees at an Amazon warehouse in Plainfield, where Hole worked briefly in 2020. Hole got into an argument with another employee and became confrontational on June 12, 2020, according to the interviews. One employee "was worried about the possibility of HOLE committing workplace violence due to his violent outbursts and antiauthority inclinations." When questioned by management, Hole denied making any threats. During a meeting with human resources, Hole made repeated sarcastic comments and claimed he was being unfairly targeted because he was gay. At one point, he showed an FBI business card and said the company could call his FBI contact. A few minutes later Hole left the building. Security suspended Hole's badge and swept the parking lot, but he was not located, according to the records. Later that summer, Hole took a job with FedEx Ground near the Indianapolis International Airport, but he left the company in October 2020, about six months before the shooting. The motive for the shooting remained a topic of speculation for months. Many of the facility's employees were Sikh, and four of the eight people Hole killed in the shooting were Sikh. More than three months after the shooting, authorities announced that the FBI's Behavioral Analysis Unit had determined the shooting was "an act of suicidal murder" in which Hole decided to kill himself "in a way he believed would demonstrate his masculinity and capability while fulfilling a final desire to experience killing people." "Only the shooter knows all the reasons why he committed this horrific act of violence," then-FBI Indianapolis Special Agent in Charge Paul Keenan said, adding that Hole "did not appear to have been motivated by bias or desire to advance any ideology." Keenan said authorities reviewed Hole's online activity, but that World War II and Nazi-type propaganda was only a small percentage of his overall viewing. "I believe we reviewed about 175,000 files this computer and it was somewhere in the neighborhood of less than 200 files mainly of German military, German Nazi things," Keenan said. The records released so far are limited in scope. In addition to the heavy redactions, the FBI withheld hundreds of additional pages altogether, citing exemptions to public records laws for medical privacy and confidential law enforcement techniques. The FBI says the four batches of records that have been made public so far represent an "interim" release and that additional releases may come in the future.
Yahoo
12-06-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
The FTC Risks Chilling Speech With Its Advertising Boycott Investigation
The Federal Trade Commission (FTC) opened an investigation into Media Matters for America, a progressive nonprofit dedicated to "monitoring, analyzing, and correcting conservative misinformation in the U.S. media," for its role in an advertising boycott of X in May. On Monday, the FTC expanded the investigation to major advertisers, including Omnicron Group and the Interpublic Group, both of which are founding members of the World Federation of Advertisers (WFA). The FTC's investigation follows not only Elon Musk's intimate involvement with the Trump administration but also lawsuits filed by X Corp. against Media Matters and the WFA. In November 2023, X Corp. filed a lawsuit against Media Matters in the U.S. District Court for the Northern District of Texas accusing the nonprofit of making false and malicious statements disparaging the quality of X, which led to the subsequent loss of advertising contracts. In its complaint, X Corp. accuses Media Matters of publicly smearing the company by "knowingly and maliciously manufactur[ing] side-by-side images [of] advertisers' posts…beside Neo-Nazi and white-nationalist fringe content." X Corp. cites "99% of [its] measured ad placement in 2023 [appearing] adjacent to content scoring above the Global Alliance for Responsible Media's [GARM] brand safety floor" as contradicting Media Matter's portrayal of the platform. X Corp. filed an antitrust lawsuit against GARM's parent organization, the WFA, in August 2024. After Musk acquired Twitter (now X) in November 2022, members contacted GARM for advice on whether to continue advertising on the platform. At this time, the suit alleges, GARM "conveyed to its members its concerns about Twitter's compliance with GARM's standards"—concerns exacerbated by critical coverage from progressive nonprofits like Media Matters—prompting a boycott that caused revenues to dip 80 percent below forecasts. X Corp. alleges that WFA members violated the Sherman Antitrust Act's prohibition of conspiracies in restraint of trade by "withholding purchases of digital advertising from Twitter." Supreme Court precedent strongly suggests this allegation is meritless. Vikram David Amar and Ashutosh Bhagwat, both professors at the University of California, Davis School of Law, cite NAACP v. Claiborne (1982) as evidence that the First Amendment applies to politically motivated boycotts. Amar and Bhagwat explain that, in Claiborne, "the Court insulated the boycotters from liability under state laws seeking to protect fair economic competition and held that 'the nonviolent elements of [the boycotters'] activities [were] entitled to the protection of the First Amendment.'" Amar and Bhagwat also invoke 303 Creative v. Elenis (2023), where the Court ruled that "a seller of inherently expressive services…can't be compelled [by a consumer] to provide speech." It stands to reason that consumers (like advertisers) may not be forced to buy expressive services they disagree with. Forcing companies to pay for speech with which they disagree is unconstitutional. The FTC's advertising boycott investigation is a waste of the commission's time and taxpayers' money because, even if advocacy groups and advertisers colluded to boycott X, the First Amendment forecloses antitrust prosecution given the expressive nature of the X platform and its advertising service. The post The FTC Risks Chilling Speech With Its Advertising Boycott Investigation appeared first on
Yahoo
05-06-2025
- Yahoo
Homegrown extremism: What is driving the rise?
Chris Piehota, former FBI agent and Director of the Terrorist Screening Center, joins NewsNation to discuss the growing threat of homegrown extremism in the U.S. This comes after two ex-military men were arrested in Washington state for stealing weapons and hoarding Neo-Nazi gear — and a man was arrested at JFK Airport for helping plan the bombing of a California fertility clinic. Piehota explains what's driving the rise in domestic extremism and how the U.S. can fight back. Copyright 2025 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.
USA Today
24-05-2025
- USA Today
Neo-Nazi leader accused of inspiring school shooting, plotting NYC attack extradited to US
Neo-Nazi leader accused of inspiring school shooting, plotting NYC attack extradited to US Show Caption Hide Caption Antioch High School student-led rally to honor Josselin Corea Escalante Students and local politicians attend a student-led rally to honor Josselin Corea Escalante at Antioch High School in Antioch, Tenn., Tuesday, Jan. 28, 2025. The 17-year-old Tennessee school shooter said before the attack he was acting on behalf of the group MKY. The leader of MKY, a Georgian national, was extradited to the U.S. and arraigned in New York on May 23. The charges relate to Michail Chkhikvishvili's alleged training of an undercover agent on how to carry out a mass poisoning. Federal officials extradited an international neo-Nazi group leader they say inspired a teen to commit a school shooting in Tennessee earlier this year and plotted to commit a mass casualty attack in New York City targeting Jewish people. The terrorist group's leader, 21-year-old Michail Chkhikvishvili, orchestrated deadly attacks around the globe, prosecutors said. The citizen of the nation of Georgia was extradited from Moldova on May 22 after he was arrested in July. He was scheduled to be arraigned in Brooklyn on May 23, according to the U.S. Department of Justice. The DOJ said the man, who went by the name "Commander Butcher," was the leader of the Maniac Murder Cult, which goes by several other names including MKY. Chkhikvishvili has distributed a writing called the "Hater's Handbook," encouraging people to commit acts of mass violence and "ethnic cleansing," according to court filings. His "solicitations of violence" led to international attacks, including a 2024 stabbing outside a mosque in Turkey, prosecutors said. Chkhikvishvili targeted the U.S. as a site for more attacks because of the ease of accessing firearms, prosecutors said in court records. He told an undercover law enforcement employee, 'I see USA as big potential because accessibility to firearms and other resources,' in an electronic message sent Sept. 8, 2023, court filings show. It was not clear if Chkhikvishvili had an attorney who could speak on his behalf 'Murder cult' leader plotted to poison Jewish kids in NYC, feds say Chkhikvishvili has been indicted in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of New York on four counts including solicitation of violent felonies. The charges stemmed from Chkhikvishvili's communications with an undercover FBI employee in which he trained and encouraged the undercover agent to carry out a mass attack against Jewish people and minorities. Chkhikvishvili corresponded with the undercover agent between September 2023 and at least March 2024. The plot included having an individual wearing a Santa Claus costume hand out poisoned candies to Jewish kids in New York City on New Year's Eve. It later evolved into targeting Jewish people on a larger scale. Chkhikvishvili said he wanted the attack to be a "bigger action than Breivik," prosecutors said. Breivik refers to Anders Behring Breivik, who killed 77 people in a massacre in Norway in 2011 that targeted mostly teenagers at a camp. "His goal was to spread hatred, fear, and destruction by encouraging bombings, arson, and even poisoning children," U.S. Attorney Breon Peace said last year. The MKY group is based in Russia and Ukraine but has members around the world, including the U.S., according to a federal complaint. Members adhere to neo-Nazi ideology promoting violence against racial minorities. Chkhikvishvili allegedly inspired Tennessee school shooting The man's arrest came before the deadly attack at Antioch High School on Jan. 22, 2025. However, prosecutors in the New York federal court linked the Antioch shooting to Chkhikvishvili's solicitations of violence in a court filing on May 23, the Nashville Tennessean, part of the USA TODAY Network, reported. Prosecutors in the Eastern District of New York wrote to the judge requesting the man be incarcerated before trial. They pointed to several ways his actions have 'directly resulted in real violence,' including the shooting at Antioch High School. According to the prosecutors, the 17-year-old attacker claimed he was taking action on behalf of MKY and at least one other group in an audio recording posted online before the shooting. It is not clear if the shooter was a member of MKY or had contact with Chkhikvishvili or other members of the terrorist organization. Chkhikvishvili said the group asks for video of brutal beatings, arson, explosions or murders to join the group, adding that the victims should be 'low race targets.' Chkhikvishvili's name also appeared in the document the DOJ said was written by the Antioch shooter – a 300-page writing in which the shooter espoused misanthropic White supremacist and Nazi ideologies. The shooter also referred to the founder of MKY and said he would write the founder's name on his gun, according to prosecutors. Josselin Corea Escalante, 16, died after the 17-year-old shot her with a pistol in the cafeteria of Antioch High School. Another student was injured during the attack. The shooter, 17-year-old student Solomon Henderson, then shot and killed himself. Contributing: Michael Loria, USA TODAY
Global News
23-05-2025
- Politics
- Global News
In briefing to minister, RCMP warns of 488% jump in terrorism charges
The number of terrorism charges laid in Canada jumped 488 per cent last year amid rising youth radicalization, the RCMP wrote to the public safety minister. The RCMP's ministerial briefing binder, posted on a government website this week, said violent extremism remained 'a prominent national security threat.' 'Canadian police have foiled six terrorist plots in the last 12 months alone, with arrests spanning from Edmonton to Ottawa to Toronto,' the briefing said. Between April 1, 2023 and March 31, 2024, 25 suspects were accused of 83 terrorism-related charges, 'representing a 488% increase,' the RCMP wrote. Three minors and six young adults were among those charged, and another eight youths faced terrorism peace bonds, signalling a 'rise in youth radicalization.' Online platforms were 'contributing to substantial youth engagement with violent extremist ideologies and an increase in the number of youth subjects of interest,' the document said. Story continues below advertisement 'This increase in violent extremism has not seen a parallel increase in resourcing.' 2:15 Suspect shouted 'Free Palestine' after fatal shooting near D.C. Jewish museum The 75-page document was prepared in December when David McGuinty became public safety minister during the final months of Justin Trudeau's government. Get daily National news Get the day's top news, political, economic, and current affairs headlines, delivered to your inbox once a day. Sign up for daily National newsletter Sign Up By providing your email address, you have read and agree to Global News' Terms and Conditions and Privacy Policy It was released publicly on Wednesday, after Prime Minister Mark Carney handed the public safety portfolio to Liberal MP Gary Anandarasangaree. Briefing binders are supposed to inform cabinet ministers about the priorities, challenges and workings of the departments within their new realms. The RCMP package identified violent extremism as a 'hot issue,' along with foreign interference, hate crimes, the Canada-U.S. border and opioids. U.S. President Donald Trump has justified his trade war against Canada with claims that fentanyl smuggling across the northern border was a 'grave threat' to America. Story continues below advertisement But there is 'little to no evidence' to back that assertion, the RCMP document said. The police force said it was nonetheless 'committed to working with international partners' on the matter. The government's demands on the RCMP have 'stretched the organization beyond its current capabilities and capacity,' the briefing warned the minister. 'The RCMP cannot continue to effectively deliver on the full breadth of its federal mandate without addressing significant resourcing challenges.' 2:08 Neo-Nazi terrorism group worries law enforcement agencies as 2 Ontario men arrested The Canadian Security Intelligence Service has also said it was seeing a 'concerning increase' in extremism, but it does not believe the national terrorism threat level needs to be raised. The recent spike in terrorism is linked partly to renewed interest in the so-called Islamic State. Since 2023, police have disrupted several ISIS-linked plots, including an alleged bombing of a pro-Israel rally on Parliament Hill. Story continues below advertisement Other foiled attacks targeted Calgary Pride events and an unknown location in Toronto. An arrest in Quebec allegedly stopped an attack planned in New York City. Three Canadian women who were part of ISIS in Syria have also been charged with terrorism, while a handful of others are on peace bonds that limit their movements. Last week, an ISIS financier pleaded guilty in a Toronto court to raising money for Gaza through crowdfunding and sending it to the terrorist group's overseas handlers. Meanwhile, members of far-right groups have increasingly been charged with terrorism offences for activities such as producing hate propaganda. 'Violent extremism is on the rise worldwide and constitutes a prominent national security threat,' the RCMP told the minister. In cases where charges can't be laid, police are using 'disruptive measures' and terrorism peace bonds, it said. Earlier this month, Global News reported a Yemeni citizen was arrested on a terrorism peace bond on April 19 as he was allegedly trying to leave Toronto to join an Iranian-backed terrorist group.
