#1 Greenwood Mall Shooter
Welcome to Dead Criminals, where we highlight the death of violence.
The best violent criminal is a dead one. Particularly those engaging in physical violence against strangers. If someone's problem can be solved by attacking a stranger, we can solve two by removing them. This series is not a call to cause, glorify, or celebrate violence against criminals, but explore criminal interactions with the correct outcome.
911 call during Greenwood shooting
Woman
There’s a shooting at the Greenwood Mall…911 Operator
Okay, how many shots have you heard?Woman
We’ve [heard] like 15, 12, I don’t know there was just a lot of them.911 Operator
Okay, what I need—Woman
Everyone ran.
The weather was cool for an Indiana summer with a touch of rain as 20-year old Jonathan Douglas Sapirman—hereafter JDS—left his apartment at Polo Run Apartments around four PM on July 17th, 2022 carrying a laden backpack. His destination was the Greenwood Mall a mile up the road. He arrived at the mall food court just before five PM. Entering the bathroom and remaining there until a few minutes before the mall closed at six PM. Victor Gomez, 30, was walking to the bathroom as JDS emerged and was the first to be shot. JDS then took aim at a couple sitting at a nearby table, striking and killing Pedro Pineda and his wife, Rosa. From there, he continued to fire at other patrons, indirectly injuring a woman and a young girl. He fired 24 shots in total.
Elisjsha Dicken, 22, (pronounced Elijah) was walking through the food court with his girlfriend. He was 40 yards from the bathroom when the attack began. Fifteen seconds after the first shot, Elisjsha drew his own concealed handgun, braced himself against a pole, and fired ten shots. Eight of them struck JDS. He fired a single return shot while retreating toward the bathroom but collapsed from his wounds and died shortly after. The entire event transpired in a less than a minute.
JDS was shut down fifteen seconds after he began. Relocate every Indiana cop to Greenwood and it’d still be impossible to replicate that feat. The first 911 call was received seven minutes after the shooting began. Six and half minutes after the shooter was dead. Elisjsha had presented himself to mall security and was waiting for the police to arrive by then.
The motive JDS had for his actions is still unknown. Instead of speculating on what it might be, I will consider what the motive likely is not.
Indianapolis is a violent city, boasting a murder rate comparable to Chicago. The state capitol suffers from stereotypical inner-city violence that has grown substantially worse in recent years. Why is not relevant to this subject. Greenwood, however, is not Indianapolis. This event and the shooter himself is disparate from the larger city’s criminal demographics. So one looking to the blame the largely democratic-run counties of Indianapolis would have trouble finding cause.
JDS had no criminal record. His juvenile history had scuffmarks, though. Fights, running away from home, a stint in foster care from which he was removed due to an abuse claim—presumably violence. JDS had been living in a weekly-paid motel following his parents’ 2017 divorce according to court documents filed by his brother during a successful custody battle with the mother. She by her own writing suffered from drug abuse. Though she claimed to have cleaned up while later trying to regain custody. JDS graduated high school still living with his brother. The kid had issues, but millions, if not tens of millions, of American adults had tarnished childhoods and see fit not to assault strangers unilaterally.
The weapons JDS brought to the mall were a Sig Sauer M400 AR-style rifle, an M&P 15 AR pistol, and a Glock 33 handgun. The M400 was purchased in March this year. The M&P March of last year. It is not known when the handgun was purchased. In any case, the guns do not appear to be purchased for the purpose of the crime. The police mentioned JDS frequented shooting ranges over the last few years but that is not an indication of intention to shoot innocent people. Anymore than learning to pick locks means you intend to become a safe cracker.
The shooting motive was probably not racial in nature. JDS waited in the bathroom over an hour and was most likely unaware of Gomez walking to the bathroom, much less know of his race before exiting the bathroom. Nor could he be aware there was a couple of similar ethnic background at a nearby table. Furthermore, the last two people JDS shot at were white.
The police reported during a press conference that JDS quit his job at the end of May. If he had been fired, that'd lend credence to a rage-based motive. Maybe his boss or coworkers made his working life unbearable which lead him to quit. Spiraling thereafter into such misery he snapped. Except he didn’t work at the mall. A majority of rage shooters attack the source of their anguish, not random, unrelated people in a different location. The 2021 Indianapolis FedEx shooter shot up the location of his former job. Every enraged postal worker going back fifty years went to and attacked someone at the location they worked. In short, the motive may be rage-related, but likely not related to his former workplace.
During that same conference, the Greenwood police chief said JDS faced eviction as reported by his family. This fact hasn't been confirmed by the police or news agencies. The police said the family told them JDS told them he was being evicted. We don't know what stage of the process he was in. Or even if he was even actually being evicted. The process might have just begun. Or he assumed he would be soon. Or he was actually about get a personal visit from a deputy sheriff.
Before JDS left for the mall, he turned his oven on and placed inside his laptop and a canister of butane. We can presume JDS hoped the can would explode destroying his laptop at least and the apartment hopefully. Fortunately for everyone else in his apartment complex, butane auto-ignites at a temperature beyond a typical residential-grade oven. Beyond the one in the man’s apartment, anyway. Was this action solely to destroy the laptop? Surely he thought the gas canister would explode. Maybe this had been a strategy to tie up police during his rampage.
Once at the mall, JDS waited in the bathroom for over an hour. How was he able to sneak multiple rifles into the mall? The M&P rifle was found disassembled in the backpack. A safe assumption would be the other was also transported the same way. Both rifles have telescoping stocks—the part you hold against your shoulder—which can be unscrewed from the gun body. One surmises he was psyching himself up in the bathroom mirror for that hour. But he could have been putting his weapon together in a stall. Maybe he was waiting for news of an apartment fire until he heard an announcement the mall was closing.
The last action JDS took before he began his assault was dunking his phone in the toilet. He destroyed his laptop, his phone, and presumably hoped to destroy his apartment. Leaving behind a suicide note or manifesto doesn't appear to be on his list of priorities.
JDS seemingly did post on 4chan, stating: Name is jonathan [sic] and today looks like a good day to die. The post included a link to an album on photo-sharing site, imgur. The two photos were of himself with his guns and chest rig pointing his handgun at his own head. The person in the photos was masked but they match a leaked photo of JDS lying dead on the ground at the Greenwood Mall. The police confirmed the death photo, but they have said little about the 4chan post other than acknowledging it exists. Why JDS spread his post across two sites is unusual. 4chan is at heart a photo-sharing website. Anyone familiar with 4chan would know that. Whoever made the post even attached an unrelated photo of a Nazi wedding. We may never know if JDS was an avid 4chan user if the FBI don’t recover anything useful from his devices. Until something appears to explain this oddity, I will assume he wasn’t very familiar with the 4chan.
To summarize: JDS doesn't appear to be a standard rage shooter. Or one driven by political or hateful design. His actions were planned and intelligent. If I had to guess, he wanted out of the game but couldn't power off his own console. The suicidal tone of the 4chan post and imgur images he posted corroborate this to me.
Excerpt from police update on Greenwood shooting
Reporter
Chief, do you think it’s a good to have armed citizens like the Good Samaritan out there to stop shooters?Irson
I will answer that this way. Many more people would have died last night if not for the responsible, armed citizen that took action very quickly within the first two minutes of this shooting.[Police Chief Irson released a statement the next day revising the “two minutes” down to 15 seconds.]
In the end, there's one less person in the world willing to attack innocent strangers. Elisjsha’s quick, effective response will deter some who might engage in similar behavior. I don’t want to herald him as an uncommon hero and erect statues in his honor. I want this man’s behavior to become the norm. The more often violent people are killed by civilians during crime, the less likely violent crime becomes. Particularly with potential mass shooters. The kind of notoriety such people want isn't being the guy who got their ticket punched by a civilian they weren't even shooting at. Best of all, Elisjsha did us a favor. Saving our tax dollars for more important things. No drawn out court trial. No jail cell and free food for JDS’s fifty-plus years in prison. Can you imagine paying taxes to keep the murderer of your loved ones alive and well-fed?
Personal responsibility, not laws, makes the world a better place. Morality can not be legislated regardless of where you lie on the political or religious spectrum. Laws only define who is a criminal. They don’t deter or solve the problem at hand. It just gives the police another charge to lay. Would JDS have reconsidered knowing he would receive ten counts of criminal conduct instead of five? Even if it were only one, the man decided to commit a crime before he left his home. He very likely set out to die. What did he care about the length of his rap sheet? The only deterrent that worked against JDS, and which will work against the next JDS, is a bullet.
Currently, members of Congress in the House are preparing a bill to ban most semi-automatic weapons at the federal level. Were this bill law Elisjsha would not have had his weapon same as if he had he obeyed the mall’s no-gun sign. More people would have died because of “common sense” gun control. In California, where gun magazines have a 10-bullet limit, JDS would still have killed at least three people as the majority of his bullets were fired at his 4th and 5th intended victims. He could have done it with just a knife. In the UK, hundreds die each year due to stabbings. In Japan, where mass stabbings are the massacre of choice, the average injured is over five and deaths three. The creative can make their own gun as did Shinzo Abe’s assassin. It wasn’t even the fancy “ghost gun” some believe are so prevalent. Good luck banning plumber’s tape, wood, wires, and batteries. Add butane gas and ovens to the list because JDS attempted to blow up his apartment using them.
If you want to see a better world, don’t worry about what bad people could do. Focus on what you can do when they try. Plan for the inevitable, not the ideal. Remember:
Dead criminals commit no crime.