Honoring the lives lost in the Indianapolis shooting
Amarjeet Kaur Johal was a 66-year-old mother, grandmother and member of the Indianapolis' Sikh community. According to her grandson's Twitter, Johal was planning to work a double shift Thursday so she could take Friday off. She later decided to grab her check and go home. He said she still had her check in her hand when they found her.
Amarjit Sekhon, a mother of two sons, was the breadwinner of her family who immigrated to the US in 2004. Her brother-in-law, Kuldip Sekhon, told the Associated Press she began working at the FedEx facility in November -- after previously working at a bakery -- and was a dedicated worker whose husband was disabled. "She was a workaholic, she always was working, working," he said. "She would never sit still ... the other day she had the (COVID-19) shot and she was really sick, but she still went to work."
Kaur had two children -- a daughter and a son, said Rimpi Girn, her daughter's brother-in-law. She immigrated to the US in 2018 and was the main breadwinner for the family. She sent money earned from her job at FedEx to her son living in India as financial support. Sekhon and Kaur went to work together every day, working the same night shift, Girn said. "They didn't want to work night shift anymore, they wanted to work day shift."
The 68-year-old Indian immigrant decided to take a job at the FedEx facility because he was bored at home and the employer was popular among Punjabi immigrants. Relatives said Singh left the Indian state of Punjab, where the Sikh community is concentrated, about eight years ago to reunite with relatives living in the United States. Jatinder Singh, one of Singh’s two sons, told the Indian news outlet Republic World that the family hopes to return him to India for funeral rites but face complications because of the pandemic.
Samaria Blackwell was the youngest of four children and looked up to her older siblings Elijah, Levi and Michaiah, her parents Jeff and Tammi Blackwell said in a statement. Blackwell played basketball and soccer and had "a tough game face" that "quickly turned to a smile outside of competition," they said. She was a straight-A student who graduated from high school last year and her parents described their daughter as "tenacious in everything she did."
Karli Smith graduated in 2020 from George Washington High School, where she was remembered as "a hardworking and dedicated student," according to a statement from Indianapolis Public Schools (IPS). "Administrators, teachers and classmates remember Karli for her sense of humor that often generated smiles and laughter. Karli was a bright light wherever she went. She will be dearly missed by all throughout IPS who knew and loved her," the statement said.
John Weisert was a retired engineer and was working at the FedEx facility to make some extra money, his wife told CNN affiliate WTHR on Friday, while she waited for news about her husband. "He's just a package handler, a retired professional engineer, but after retirement he wanted to keep working. We had some things we needed to pay off, so he took this job," Weisert told WTHR. The couple was set to celebrate their 50th wedding anniversary in the fall.
Those who knew Matthew Alexander described the 32-year-old as a huge baseball fan and a trustworthy, reliable and kind friend, WTHR reported. Family and friends gathered at Avon High School's baseball field Saturday to honor the former player before his father threw the opening pitch. "I didn't do near as well as he did in the day, but I was there and I knew he was looking down saying thank you dad."
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