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Thursday, May 16, 2024
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Volume 10, Issue YY
Local man is commander on Air Force ‘Crew of Year’ Owen MacMillan The Community Guide
In the summer of 2023, as the West African nation of Niger was seized in a military coup, more than 200 American citizens and allied personnel found themselves trapped in the country’s Diori Hamani International Airport. The airport was surrounded by heavily armored CNSP (National Council for the Safeguard of the Homeland) forces, the supporters of the coup. With so many allied assets in such a precarious position, the U.S. State Department was unable to denounce the seizure of power in Niger as an illegal coup. But the crew of Reach 190, a part of the U.S. Air Force’s 7th Airlift Squadron was ready to help, led by Elyria native Capt. Dylan Bishop. Over the course of four weeks, Bishop and Reach 190 resupplied and eventually relocated the 245 personnel trapped at the airport to a more secure location in Niger. For their actions, Bishop and his crew received the Air Mobility Command’s 2023 General James H. Doolittle Trophy, marking them as the Air Force’s Crew of the Year in 2023. “I want to stress that this was a crew award,” Bishop said. “I was just very blessed to be commander of this crew. “These are some of the best airmen I’ve ever worked with, it was an honor working with them. … It’s kind of terrifying when you’re the one who has to make the decisions, but I learned as a little kid: If you take care of others, they’ll take care of you.”
The Community Guide
Elyria takeoff Bishop, whose father is Chronicle Photo Chief Bruce Bishop, was born and raised in Elyria. “Growing up, I never really left Gulf Road,” he said. Perhaps an exaggeration, but only a slight one, as Bishop attended Ely Elementary School, the former Northwood Middle School off of Gulf Road and graduated from Elyria Catholic High School in 2014. Bishop credits Elyria Catholic with shaping him into the leader he is today — through his education but even more so through his time on the football and track teams. He was a captain of the track team his senior year. “That was really how I started to learn how to be a leader,” he said. His education taught him how to lead, but where Bishop would go was more shaped by another Gulf Road-adjacent institution: American Legion Post 12. “I can still remember walking through one hallway there and seeing all the pictures and awards
Suspect who shot at police killed in Ridgeville
PHOTO PROVIDED
Air Force Capt. Dylan Bishop stands next to Marine One inside a C-17 transport jet at an undisclosed location.
on the walls,” Bishop said. “It just got me started down the path, thinking it would be cool to be a part of something like that.” Bishop visited the legion as a child because his grandfather, Darrell Bishop, was a Marine Corps veteran and active member at Post 12. But, it was his maternal grandfather, John Hines, who more immediately inspired Bishop’s career path. Hines was a member of the Army Air Corps during World War II — the Air Force was not founded until 1947 — who worked as a mechanic on the P-51 Mustang fighter plane. “He died when I was in second grade, so (before I) got to really speak with him. “I never got a chance to hear his stories,” Bishop said. “I decided I wanted to make stories of my own, and maybe be
a part of history.” After high school, Bishop attended Kent State University as a member of the Air Force Reserve Officers’ Training Corps (ROTC) and graduated in 2018 with his commercial pilot’s license. Bishop enlisted in the Air Force, and by the summer of 2023 he was a captain in the 7th Airlift Squadron, based in Joint Base Lewis-McChord in Washington.
Niger in turmoil On July 26, 2023, Niger’s government was overthrown and President Mohamed Bazoum was placed under house arrest. More than 200 American or allied personnel, many of them ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance) or COIN (counterinsurgency) assets, found themselves trapped and undersupplied at Diori Hamani, the airport outside of Niamey, Niger’s
capital. The airport was encircled by CNSP forces in support of selfproclaimed head of state Gen. Abdourahamane Tiani. There was no fighting at the base, but due to the unstable situation and fact that the overthrown government had been friendly, the U.S. was determined to remove its assets from the airport. Seventh Airlift Squadron’s Reach 190 crew, an eight-man team led by Bishop, was assigned the task and departed immediately. The crew set up a second forward-operating base on Gran Canaria, one of Spain’s Canary Islands, about 90 miles off the coast of Morocco. This was not a normal staging location for the Air Force, Bishop said, and the crew had to develop See BISHOP, A2
NORTH RIDGEVILLE — North Ridgeville police shot and killed a Tennessee man who opened fire on them in the driveway of a home on James Road last week. Chief Michael Freeman said North Ridgeville police received a call at 6:21 p.m. Wednesday from the White County Sheriff’s Office in Tennessee. They were looking for a suspect, Jason Norris, 41, in the shooting death of his girlfriend, Megan Campbell, 32. He is believed to have fled in her stolen SUV, a Jeep Compass with Tennessee plates that the Tennessee’s sheriff’s office had traced to North Ridgeville at the Westlake border. Authorities were able to trace the stolen vehicle because North Ridgeville is one of several cities in the area with Flock camera systems, which read the license plates and other identifying characteristics of vehicles entering and exiting the city. After the call from Tennessee, North Ridgeville police officers spotted the stolen SUV in the driveway of a James Road home and were familiar with the residents who lived there. Police Lt. Tony Lee said neighbors had seen Norris driving around the neighborhood. Officers set up a perimeter around the house. Norris and his cousin came out of the home and Norris shot at officers, Freeman said. Two North Ridgeville police officers returned fire and Norris was struck once in the upper torso. A gun was found in the driveway where Norris fell, Freeman said. Norris was taken to University Hospitals St. John Medical Center in Westlake where he died later that evening. The officers, who were not identified, have been placed on paid administrative leave while the incident remains under investigation by the Ohio Bureau of Criminal Investigation. “They handled it very professionally,” Freeman said of his officers.
INSIDE THIS WEEK Amherst
Nine men arrested in sex sting. A3
Oberlin
Pot provider gets abatement. A4
Lorain County
Airport gets repaving. A5
SPORTS A6 • CROSSWORD A7 • SUDOKU A7 • KID SCOOP A8