As of August 5, 2019, police investigators stated that the investigation is ongoing and that they are not prepared to speculate about motivation. A preliminary assessment did not indicate the shooter had a racial or political motive. On August 4, police and the FBI searched the shooter's home and found evidence that showed an interest in violence and mass shootings and that he had expressed a desire to commit a mass shooting. His high school girlfriend said he complained of visual and auditory hallucinations and psychosis, and was afraid of developing schizophrenia. He was previously bullied and had planned to shoot up the school, a classmate said. The "hit list" was discovered in 2010 and resulted in a police investigation. Two former high school classmates said Betts was suspended from Bellbrook High School after he made lists of other students he wanted to kill and rape.
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An investigation concluded by the FBI in 2021 found that Betts "acted alone and was not directed by any organization or aligned to any specific ideological group," and that he "fantasized about mass shootings, serial killings, and murder-suicide for at least a decade". Betts was also known to have been in support of presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren. In the hours before he opened fire in Dayton, he "liked" a post in favor of gun control, and several concerning the El Paso shooting, including a tweet that called the El Paso shooter a "terrorist" and a " white supremacist". īetts made online references about Satan and described himself as a leftist and antifa sympathizer. According to police, he had minor traffic offenses on his record. Soon after the attack, police identified the gunman as Connor Stephen Betts, a 24-year-old who lived in Bellbrook, Ohio.
Kent Harshbarger ruled that the deaths were caused by Betts and were not the result of police gunfire. As a result of those findings, Montgomery County Coroner Dr. The second victim was shot by Betts multiple times and sustained a superficial gunshot wound from police. Had she not been suffering from fatal injuries, one of the bullets fired by police would not have been lethal. An autopsy showed that a woman who was shot by Betts was already bleeding from a fatal gunshot wound when she was struck by two bullets that were fired by police. Two of the victims who died were also shot by police. Four of the dead were in their 20s, four more were in their 30s and one was 57. The nine dead include six males and three females, six black and three white. Police reported that all the fatalities occurred outside the bar on East 5th Street. on the same day, 15 of 27 hospitalized people had been discharged. Kettering Health Network, comprising nine hospitals in the area, received nine victims, with three in serious condition and three in fair condition.
Miami Valley Hospital received 16 victims from the shooting, of which five were admitted, with one in critical condition.
Police evacuated many nearby night venues and warned Dayton residents to stay away from the Oregon Historic District. An autopsy report released on December 6 showed that Betts was hit with 30 rounds. Within 32 seconds of the first shots being fired, the gunman was shot dead. Īccording to Dayton Police Chief Richard Biehl, 20 seconds after the shooting began, law enforcement officers were already on the scene and engaged with the gunman. An additional 10 people were injured by other causes, bringing the total number of injured to 27. He fired 41 rounds into the crowd in less than 30 seconds, fatally shooting nine people and wounding 17 others. 223-caliber ammunition and equipped with a 100-round drum magazine. He was carrying a firearm that included part of a semi-automatic Anderson Manufacturing AM-15 (based on the AR-15) in a pistol configuration with a shortened barrel, chambered in. eyewitnesses reported that a man opened fire at the entrance of Ned Peppers Bar in the Oregon Historic District. he split from the two and was recorded leaving the bar. Two hours before the shooting the gunman was seen entering a bar with his brother and a friend in the downtown Oregon Historic District of Dayton.