Overview
- Responding to 911 calls about a disturbance and shots fired, officers who arrived at a Chippewa Trail home immediately faced heavy gunfire after dispatchers received reports around 9:30 p.m. on Sunday, July 5.
- Wayne County officials identified the victims as Rittman Police Sgt. Scott Ries and Christine McWilliams plus her 13-year-old daughter McKinley McWilliams, and named 38-year-old Brandon Fazekas as the suspected shooter whose death investigators say is consistent with suicide.
- Four people died in the incident and multiple law enforcement personnel were wounded, including several SWAT members and a Wayne County Sheriff’s Office K-9 that remains in serious condition.
- Released bodycam video shows repeated, intense gunfire as officers moved into the area and corroborates accounts that officers came under immediate fire on arrival.
- A large multiagency response briefly locked down nearby neighborhoods and investigators with the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation are processing the scene, reviewing footage, completing autopsies and interviewing witnesses to establish the full timeline and motive.