First responders from Johnson, Marion and Bartholomew counties responded to a mass shooting at the Greenwood Park Mall Sunday evening. Four people died, including the shooter, and two were injured.
Daily Journal File Photo
Police are investigating social media posts that a person resembling the Greenwood Park Mall gunman made prior to Sunday’s shooting.
The mall shooting occurred just before 6 p.m. Sunday. Four people died, including the suspect, Jonathan Douglas Sapirman, 20, of Greenwood, and two others were injured.
Sapirman was shot eight times by Elisjsha Dicken, 22, of Seymour, who police are calling a good Samaritan.
In the aftermath of the shooting, screenshots began popping up online of a post made the same day by a person on 4chan, an imageboard website that allows users to post anonymously. The post was made Sunday at 2:13 p.m. — nearly four hours before the shooting, according to screenshots reviewed by the Daily Journal.
It has not been confirmed by police that the post was made by the gunman, though people on social media are attributing it to him.
The post reads, “name is Jonathan and today seems like a good day to die.”
The post is accompanied by what appears to be a photo of a Nazi officer getting married and includes a link to three photos showing a young man posing for photos with two rifles in the background. In two photos, the man is wearing a vest, a hat and sunglasses and his face is obscured by a face mask. The third photo is of three weapons sitting on a beige carpeted floor. Two of the weapons are semi-automatic rifles and the third is a handgun, the screenshots show.
The weapons in the photos appear to match the descriptions of the weapons police found in the suspect’s belongings.
The photos have been taken down from the Imgur photo website, with the link now showing a message saying, “The image you are requesting does not exist or is no longer available.” However, screenshots of the images are continuing to be posted on social media.
Greenwood police have been made aware of the post and are investigating it, said Jim Ison, police chief.
“We are working with the FBI on this and have submitted search warrants to retrieve Sapirman’s social media account records and archives,” he said.
During a Monday afternoon press conference, police said Sapirman’s motive is currently unknown and that there is no evidence at this time that the shooting was racially motivated, Ison said Monday.
The people who died were Hispanic, however. The races and ethnicities of those who were injured have not been released.
Law enforcement has also not found any evidence of a note or message left behind by the gunman.
A cell phone — which was found in a toilet at the mall — and a laptop — which was damaged by heat in the oven at his apartment — are both in the custody of an FBI’s forensic team, police said.
It will take time for the agency to analyze the devices, FBI Indianapolis Special Agent in Charge Herb Stapleton told reporters Monday. There’s no guarantee that data from the phone will be recovered, and for the laptop, analysts will have to review it to see what is technically possible for them to do, he said.
Stapleton also told reporters it was too early to say if the shooter fit a specific profile.
This is not the first instance of 4chan being brought up in connection to a mass shooting. The man accused of killing 10 people in a racially-motivated mass shooting at a Tops Friendly Markets store in Buffalo, New York in May also used the platform, according to news reports.
The Buffalo gunman had allegedly posted 180-page document, in which he said he began visiting the online forum site in 2020, and drew inspiration from racist and hateful threads and weapons forums on the site. The gunman also appeared to have hinted at his plans on 4chan, according to an online diary that has been attributed to the suspect.
The Buffalo gunman has not yet been convicted.
