2019 Dayton shooting

Two hours before the shooting the gunman was seen entering a bar with his brother[5] and a friend in the downtown Oregon Historic District of Dayton. At about 12:13 a.m. he split from the two and was recorded leaving the bar.[11]

At 1:05 a.m. eyewitnesses reported that a man opened fire at the entrance of Ned Peppers Bar in the Oregon Historic District.[12] He was carrying a firearm that included part of a semi-automatic Anderson Manufacturing AM-15 (based on the AR-15)[1][13] in a pistol configuration with a shortened barrel, chambered in .223-caliber ammunition and equipped with a 100-round drum magazine.[2][14] He fired 41 rounds into the crowd in less than 30 seconds, fatally shooting nine people and wounding 17 others. An additional 10 people were injured by other causes, bringing the total number of injured to 27.[15][16][17]

According to Dayton Police Chief Richard Biehl, 20 seconds after the shooting began,[7] law enforcement officers were already on the scene and engaged with the gunman.[18] Within 32 seconds of the first shots being fired,[3] the gunman was shot dead.[19] An autopsy report released on December 6 showed that Betts was hit with 30 rounds.[20] Police evacuated many nearby night venues and warned Dayton residents to stay away from the Oregon Historic District.[19]

Vigil for the victims, August 5, 2019

Miami Valley Hospital received 16 victims from the shooting, of which five were admitted, with one in critical condition. Kettering Health Network, comprising nine hospitals in the area, received nine victims, with three in serious condition and three in fair condition.[21] By 10:00 a.m. on the same day, 15 of 27 hospitalized people had been discharged.[19]

Police reported that all the fatalities occurred outside the bar on East 5th Street,.[19] The nine dead include six men and three women, six black and three white. Four of the dead were in their 20s, four more were in their 30s and one was 57.[22][23][6] Two of the victims who died were also shot by police.[3][4][24] 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. Had she not been suffering from fatal injuries, one of the bullets fired by police would not have been lethal. The second victim was shot by Betts multiple times and sustained a superficial gunshot wound from police. As a result of those findings, Montgomery County Coroner Dr. Kent Harshbarger ruled that the deaths were caused by Betts and were not the result of police gunfire.[25][26]

Soon after the attack, police identified the gunman as Connor Stephen Betts,[27] a 24-year-old who lived in Bellbrook, Ohio.[19][28] According to police, he had minor traffic offenses on his record.[29][30]

Betts made online references about Satan and described himself as a leftist and antifa sympathizer.[31][32][33] 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".[33] Betts was also known to have been in support of presidential candidates Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren.[34][35] 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".[36]

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.[37] The "hit list" was discovered in 2010 and resulted in a police investigation.[37] He was previously bullied and had planned to shoot up the school, a classmate said.[29] His high school girlfriend said he complained of visual and auditory hallucinations and psychosis, and was afraid of developing schizophrenia.[38]

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.[15] A preliminary assessment did not indicate the shooter had a racial or political motive.[9] As of August 5, 2019, police investigators stated that the investigation is ongoing and that they are not prepared to speculate about motivation.[9][39] On August 5, Dayton Police Chief Richard Biehl stated that: "We have a lot of evidence still to go through ... based on where we're at now, we are not seeing any indication of race being a motive."[40] Investigators are divided and have not determined whether he shot his sibling deliberately.[40] A federal law enforcement official said that they were looking at whether the suspect was associated with incel groups.[41]

The suspect had additional ammunition magazines with him, and was wearing body armor, a mask and hearing protection during the attack.[16][42] He ordered the firearm used in the shooting online from Texas, and the firearm was transferred to a local firearms dealer in Ohio, where he picked it up.[17] The firearm used was "modified in essence to function like a rifle", according to the Dayton Police; photos released by the Dayton Police show an AR-15 style firearm with a pistol brace.[2]

On August 15, the Montgomery County Coroner announced that Betts had cocaine, alcohol, and Xanax in his system; and he also had a vape pen and a baggie containing cocaine in one of his pockets.[43]

Bullet holes in a window a day after the shooting

Members of the Southwest Ohio Critical Incident Stress Management Team and the Greater Montgomery County CISM team met with police who had responded to the scene to help them process the situation. The team includes mental health professionals, police officers, firefighters, medics, and chaplains.[44]

The local blood bank asked for more donations following the shooting, and various companies promoted donation drives.[45] Local leaders and community members held a vigil on East 5th Street on August 4, where ten doves were released, one each for each dead victim and one for the injured.[46]

• List of mass shootings in the United States
• Mass shootings in the United States
• Gun violence in the United States

• The New York Times list of victims fatally shot
• Media related to 2019 Dayton shooting at Wikimedia Commons