On investigation, Parish said, a man entered the plant and shot and killed another man inside. A second person also suffered a non-life-threatening gunshot wound and a few other people suffered injures unrelated to the shooting, he said.
The shooter then shot himself.
The sergeant said that the shooter was taken to the hospital, along with the other person who was shot.
There was a large police presence outside the plant including crews from Moraine, Miami Township, Kettering, West Carrollton and the Montgomery County Sheriff’s Office.
An area of parking lot along Northlawn Avenue was taped off, with blood and clothes visible in the cordoned-off area.
Credit: Jeremy P. Kelley
Credit: Jeremy P. Kelley
Production has been suspended at the plant for now, a GM executive said early Friday.
“We are aware of an incident at the DMAX Moraine manufacturing facility, and are working with local authorities,” Pat Morrissey, GM’s vice president of corporate communications, said in a statement to the Dayton Daily News. “All production operations have been suspended at this time until further notice.”
Questions were sent Friday to a representative of the IUE-CWA union, which represents DMAX production workers.
Maker of the Duramax diesel engine
DMAX, a 60/40 joint venture between General Motors and Isuzu Motors, manufactures Duramax 6.6L Turbo Diesel engines that power heavy-duty Chevrolet Silverado and GMC Sierra trucks. The 3.0-liter Duramax engine goes into the Chevrolet Tahoe, Suburban or Silverado. The 6.6-liter turbo diesel package, with an Allison transmission, is available as an option.
It’s one of the largest Dayton-area employers in one location, with more than 800 workers.
DMAX has built Duramax engines in Moraine since 1999. For close to four years, the Moraine plant has paired with a newer GM plant in Brookville that makes components for the diesel engines. The Brookville DMAX plant was conceived as operating concurrently with the original DMAX plant in Moraine, sending the Moraine plant machined engine components for assembly there.
From Moraine, finished diesel engines go to a GM Flint, Mich., plant, where engines are assembled into heavy-duty trucks.
However, in recent months, public bodies such as the Dayton-Montgomery County Port Authority and Montgomery County Commission have approved economic incentives for GM to keep the Moraine DMAX jobs in the Dayton area. The automaker has said it is examining a business case for expanding the Brookville plant, moving DMAX jobs there from Moraine — or moving the jobs to Flint, Mich.
GM spokespeople have said company leaders have not made a final decision about the disposition of the DMAX jobs, although it appears that ground work has started toward a possible expansion of the Brookville site.
But whether those jobs go to Brookville or Michigan, it appears DMAX operations at the Dryden Road plant may end sooner rather than later.
In the past two decades, the enduring popularity of trucks in America has buoyed DMAX. The Moraine and Brookville plants represent a final outpost for GM jobs in the Dayton area, a locale that in earlier decades was home to more than 15,000 GM and Delphi workers. A GM SUV assembly plant near the DMAX facility closed in late 2008. (Delphi no longer exists as a U.S. auto parts producer.)
This is the second workplace attack in the past few months – in March a man was stabbed and killed at the Hematite Inc. auto parts manufacturing plant in Englewood.
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