HAMILTON — The suspect in a shooting at LugNutz bar in Fairfield that left one person dead and two injured has been indicted on multiple felony charges, including murder.
Miguel Wesley Galliher, 20, of Hamilton was indicted on Friday by a Butler County grand jury on murder with a gun specification, six counts of felonious assault, failure to comply with an order or signal of a police officer, carrying a concealed weapon and illegal possession of a firearm in a liquor permit premises.
Galliher allegedly shot 44-year-old Robert C. Strong of Hamilton on Nov. 7. Strong was flown by medical helicopter to University Medical Center in Cincinnati, where he was pronounced dead, according to the Hamilton County Coroner’s Office.
Dash camera video of the responding officer’s vehicle showed a gray Ford vehicle, believed to be the getaway car. The officer spied the vehicle just north of Donald Drive and chased it north on Ohio 4. The gray vehicle is seen weaving in and out of traffic, and then accelerating on the state route once it passed brief congestion north of Symmes Road.
The vehicle then spun out and veered right of the roadway, coming to a stop in a grassy area next to a used car lot north of the CSX railroad overpass.
The officer could be heard yelling multiple times for the four passengers in the vehicle to get their “hands up” and “keep your hands up.”
The video ends with officers ordering the third of four passengers out of the vehicle. The second person ordered out was Galliher, the only person charged in Strong’s shooting death. He is seen cooperating with officers’ commands, walking backward from the vehicle he drove to the police cruiser. One officer warned Galliher, “If you run, you’re going to get bit,” referring to the responding K-9 officer.
Galliher was ordered to lie face-down on the ground next to the recording police cruiser, and was handcuffed.
Hailey Vierling, 21, of Hamilton, and Jerome Golston, 30, of Lima, also were hit by gunfire and suffered injuries that were not life-threatening.
Officers were dispatched at about 1:30 a.m. to 22 Donald Drive for a report of a shooting inside the bar. The investigation revealed that Strong and Galliher were involved in an argument when Galliher pulled out a gun and began shooting, according to police.
Galliher shot Strong “several times,” according to court documents.
Galliher fled in the gray Ford, according to police.
Police said it does not appear that Vierling and Golston were directly involved in the shooting.
Fairfield dispatchers received 10 frantic calls in the minutes after the shooting.
“I need an ambulance here to take my man to the hospital. He’s been shot twice,” a woman told a dispatcher. She was upset that she could not get back into the bar. “I seen his chest. I want him to a hospital.”
Another upset caller screamed while talking to dispatchers as police officers tried to get her to leave the bar.
“Someone has been shot. He is down on the ground. The guy is laying down. He is not moving,” said a caller who said she was on the floor of the bathroom. “I really don’t think he is going to make it.”
Another caller said, “There’s somebody that’s dead, there’s somebody dead. They were shooting in this bar. … Oh my God.”
Galliher remains in the Butler County Jail.
