AG Garland honors team that investigated Dayton mass shooting

Nine people were killed and 27 others injured before Dayton police fatally shot the 24-year-old shooter 32 seconds after the first shots were fired.

Federal and local law enforcement agencies worked tirelessly in the hours and weeks after the shooting to determine whether the shooter acted alone, how he acquired the weapons and his motive through hundreds of warrants, subpoenas and interviews. They also gathered and analyzed forensic, electronic and physical evidence, according to a release issued Wednesday from the U.S. Department of Justice.

The investigation concluded that the shooter acted alone. However, a friend of the shooter’s, Ethan Kollie, was sentenced to 32 months in federal prison for lying on ATF forms to obtain firearms from a licensed gun dealer.

“This award recognizes that the substantial information the team gathered concerning the shooter’s motivations and methods gives us a key tool in preventing similar domestic attacks in the future,” said Kenneth L. Parker, U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Ohio. “The team worked hard to provide answers to the community and that resulted in a participant being held accountable for his role in the attack.”

Garland presented an “Attorney General’s Award for Outstanding Work in the Investigation and Response to a Domestic Terrorist Attack in Dayton, Ohio” at a ceremony on Tuesday in Washington, D.C.

The prosecution team included:

Former Assistant U.S. Attorney Dominick Gerace; Former First Assistance U.S. Attorney Vipal Patel; paralegal Catherine Robillard; victim witness specialist Acquanette Lindsey; Justin Sher, trial attorney with the counterterrorism section of the National Security Division; Christina Conrad and Linda James, FBI victim-witness specialists in Cincinnati Field Division; Michael Herwig and Morgan Spurlock, FBI supervisory special agents; Patrick Gragan and T.A. Staderman, FBI special agents; and FBI task force officers, joint terrorism task force Charles Balaj (Oakwood Public Safety Department), Brad Meeker (Dayton Police Department), Kyle Metz (Greene County Sheriff’s Office) and A.J. Schweier (recently retired from West Chester Police Department).