FARGO (KFGO) – Three days after a man opened fire on Police and Fire personnel who were responding to a car crash in south Fargo, killing one officer and critically wounding two others, Police Chief Dave Zibolski says there are still more questions than answers.
“This is a unusual circumstance. It’s a completely unprovoked attack on law enforcement and our firefighters and so, why? And to what end? Are there any other legs to this?” Zibolski said. “We don’t know those answers. That’s what the BCI and the FBI are working on and we have to give them the time to do that. There’s a lot of pieces to doing this type of analysis and investigation.”
Zibolski says there’s no indication of any continuing threat to the public. The shooter, 37-year-old Mohamad Barakat, was fatally shot by Fargo officer Zachary Robinson to end the attack.
“Zach, under fire, with just extreme courage and valor, responded to what he had been trained to do. His calmness in that situation is just incredible. And if he hadn’t acted and done everything exactly how he did it and as quickly as he could, we might not have those officers in the hospital still with us, because Zach’s ability to end that threat of death to others allowed those firefighters to be in a position to get back out and provide life saving care to our cops. Every second counts in a situation like this,” Zibolski said.
Robinson is a seven-year veteran of the force and was the training officer of 23-year-old Jake Wallin, who died in the shooting. Wallin had only been on the force for three months and previously served in Afghanistan as a member of the Minnesota National Guard.
“I was talking to Jake’s dad last night and he told me, ‘If I had told Jake he was gonna get shot the next day he still would have gone to work.’ That’s how committed he was. That’s how purposeful he was,” Zibolski said.
The two other officers who were shot, Tyler Hawes and Andrew Dotas, are still in the hospital, in critical but stable condition according to Zibolski. Hawes graduated from the Fargo Police Academy with Wallin. Dotas is a six-year veteran of the force.
A 25-year-old woman who police described as a bystander was also shot and seriously injured. Zibolski said she had only moved to Fargo three weeks ago.
Zibolski said involvement in the investigation by federal agencies like the FBI is not uncommon.
“From my past experience, any time an officer is killed in the line of duty the FBI and other federal entities always jump in and are there to provide any possible assistance that they can. And when we’re talking about the guns, the firearm involved in this particular situation, this is an appropriate federal investigation,” Zibolski said.
The North Dakota Bureau of Criminal Investigation is the lead agency investigating the shooting. State Attorney General Drew Wrigley has not provided any anticipated timeline as to how long the investigation might take to complete.
