Five months after the mass shooting at the Greenwood Park Mall, police say they are still unable to determine the gunman’s motive.
Officials from the Greenwood Police Department and the FBI provided an update on their investigation into the July 17 shooting during a joint press conference at the Greenwood City Center Wednesday.
Greenwood resident Jonathan Douglas Sapirman, 20, entered the mall before going into a food court bathroom for an hour to prepare for the shooting. The gunman opened fire around 5:56 p.m., killing three and injuring two others before he was fatally shot by 22-year-old Seymour resident Elisjsha “Eli” Dicken.
Indianapolis couple Pedro Pineda, 56, and Rosa Mirian Rivera de Pineda, 37, were killed, along with Victor Gomez, 30, also of Indianapolis. Two others, including a juvenile, were injured in the shooting.
Officials revealed more information about the events in the gunman’s life that led up to the shooting during the press conference, though they were unable to definitively say what the gunman’s motive was, and said it was unlikely that he targeted the victims.
Gunman’s history
The gunman had no adult criminal history or red flags that would have prevented him from legally obtaining a gun, police chief Jim Ison told reporters Wednesday. He had a few brushes with police when he was a juvenile, including once when he brought a knife to school.
Ison didn’t say which school the knife incident happened at, though the gunman did attend Greenwood and Center Grove schools, along with a school in Columbus and another private school at different points in his life.
Warrants were served to the Department of Child Services, Polo Run apartments and every school district the gunman attended as part of the investigation. There were 12 Child Protective Services reports filed involving the gunman from when he was 11 to 18 years old, including allegations of abuse, neglect and truancy, Ison said.
There was also evidence the gunman was homeless at times as a child, and was in and out of foster care, Ison said. Deputy Chief Jay Arnold — the lead investigator — later told reporters that the gunman did seek counseling quite often within the DCS system and with the schools, however, no red flags were raised.
The gunman had lived in Greenwood since he was 17 and lived at Polo Run Apartments for the entire period, first with his brother and then alone for the last two years, Ison said. In the months before the shooting, he was jobless and his brother and father had stopped financially supporting him. He was going to be evicted from his apartment prior to the shooting, he said.
Investigation ongoing
The FBI and GPD attempted to recover data from his laptop and cell phone but have been unsuccessful so far. The laptop was found in the oven with butane, which exploded — blowing open the oven door — and damaging the laptop beyond recovery. The phone was placed in a toilet at the mall prior to the shooting, Ison said.
The cell phone was dried out, but it is password locked and the FBI is still trying to determine the phone’s passcode. The phone is hooked up to a machine that is attempting to crack into the phone at FBI Laboratory in Quantico, Virginia. It could take a while as there are “about a million combinations,” Ison said.
“This process is still ongoing and could take years to unlock,” he said. “It’s for this reason that we have not been able to conduct a forensic examination of the cell phone.”
Despite this, the agencies have been able to retrieve the gunman’s cell phone records, along with his internet browsing and cloud history. Nothing of significance was found in these records, Ison said. The agencies also served search warrants to several social media companies including Google, Facebook, Reddit and 4chan.
Inconclusive motive
In all the warrants, there was no manifesto or note uncovered, nor any posts making any threats to shoot up the mall, Ison said.
The shooter had a fascination with Nazi Germany and studied extensively about World War II, his family and friends told police. He posted extensively under the username Greater German Reich on Reddit and seemed to be fascinated with and knowledgeable about mass shootings. He seemed to almost idolize mass shooters in some of the comments, Ison said.
However, there was nothing to suggest he shared the Nazi ideology, Ison said. At one point he even criticized someone for posting a swastika, he said.
“Instead, it seemed that he was touting his knowledge of the subject,” Ison said.
His posts about mass shootings raised a red flag with one user in 2019 and a tip was reported to the FBI field office in Baltimore. After an investigation, a warrant was served for his IP address at Polo Run in 2020, Ison said.
However, the FBI was unable to determine who posted the comments because he was using the complex’s free WiFi and the FBI could not trace the comments to a specific person, Ison said.
The gunman didn’t have many friends, but police interviewed two that they knew of and his ex-girlfriend, as well as his family members, Ison said.
His family was surprised to hear he would do something like this, however, a friend saw him as the “school shooter type” though he never made any specific threats, Ison said.
His friends also described him as being fascinated with Nazi Germany, guns and drugs, he said.
His ex-girlfriend said he was racist against Black and Hispanic people because of his experiences growing up in foster care. However, his comments online don’t suggest he was racist, Ison said.
“She also reported that he once told her quote, ‘This world is not made for me and I will not live past 20 years old,’” Ison said. He also told her that if he ever killed himself, he would take others with him.”
After examining social media “there is no clear motive” about reasoning, time or place of the shooting, Ison said. He also did not leave a note or manifesto citing his motivation.
Though the people who were killed were all Hispanic, Ison says it was likely a coincidence. Because the gunman was in the bathroom for an hour, he had no way of knowing who would be outside when he opened fire. The victims are most likely just the people closest to him when exiting the bathroom, Ison said.
Ison also revealed the gunman had very poor eyesight, and an ophthalmologist said that from a distance of 15 feet, he would only be able to see shapes and colors. The autopsy report showed the gunman did not have contact lenses or glasses.
Ison also said GPD has no plan to release any video out of respect for the families of the people killed.
‘A true hero’
Ison also updated the public on Dicken, the armed citizen who fatally shot the gunman from 40 yards away amid the shooting. He said the Johnson County Prosecutor’s Office has determined Dicken’s use of force was lawful and he will not be charged.
“I would like to make it perfectly clear that we consider — and there is no doubt in my mind that Elisjsaha Dicken saved many, many lives that night — he is a true hero,” Ison said.
Dicken’s attorney Guy Relford held a separate press conference to update the public following the GPD and FBI press conference. Calling Dicken an “All-American” hard worker, Relford explained Dicken and his girlfriend were at the mall to get a smoothie they couldn’t get in the Columbus area.
“When the circumstances unfolded as they did, his first thought was simply, ‘I need to protect people. I need to stop this person from killing people,’” Relford told reporters.
Relford later revealed, with Dicken’s permission, that the Glock 19 he was carrying had a damaged sight. Dicken also did not practice at shooting ranges, instead he practiced dry firing at home. He also had learned to shoot at a very young age, Relford said.
Relford said Dicken does not plan to make public comments and wants to just get back to his life. Taking a life is a traumatic experience, and is hard to recover from, Relford said.
“I will speak generally, having represented multiple people in the same situation, it’s a very tough thing that goes on for a long time,” he said.
Dicken has also received job officers from police departments asking him if he wants to join, however, he has repeatedly declined, Relford said. He’s also received messages from family members of the victims and from other people who have been in similar situations.
“They wanted to sit down and talk with him and take him through their experiences and share how they got through it,” Relford said.
