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Former classmate says Dayton shooter was pro-gun control, ‘definitely leaned to the left’

Dayton mass shooter Connor Betts was a supporter of gun control — with political views that “definitely leaned to the left,” a former classmate says.

“He was actually anti-2nd Amendment,” Bellbrook High School alum Will El-Fakir claimed in an interview with the Dayton Daily News. “Definitely not a right-leaning person.”

Betts, 24, slaughtered nine people — including his own sister — on Sunday with an AR-style rifle before being killed by police. He also managed to wound 27 others.

“I don’t know if this is the motive that made him snap,” El-Fakir said, “(but I think) he donned himself with that ballistic vest just to show people how easy it was to arm themselves. It’s pure speculation.”

El-Fakir told the Daily News that he knew Betts for years, and he always leaned left.





“He never once spit out a conservative opinion on gun control,” El-Fakir said.

The former friend, like many others who knew Betts, claimed he was known to have violent fantasies about killing classmates and random people at bars — much like he did early Sunday in Dayton.

“He was getting a little violent with friends,” El-Fakir said, noting how Betts “started bringing guns around” for no particular reason.

“There were times when he went to bars and just scoped the place out,” El-Fakir said, describing Betts during his time at Sinclair Community College.

“He’d say, ‘If I brought this-or-that through here, it would have done some damage.’”

Most people didn’t take Betts’ threats seriously, according to El-Fakir.

“We were all young guys and we had known each other for years,” he said. “It’s not something you’d see your friends doing.”





About five months ago, El-Fakir and Betts’ friendship came to an abrupt end after the mass shooter pulled a gun and pointed it at El-Fakir’s head.

“[Betts] was definitely not in a right state of mind,” El-Fakir said.





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