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Ryant Washington, the chair of a state commission investigating the 2019 mass shooting in Virginia Beach, hit back at recent criticism aimed at the panel at its monthly meeting Wednesday.
“If there is any indication or implication that individuals (on this commission) do not care, I would say that is certainly a false narrative,” he said during the meeting in Richmond. “I think we are all here because we do care, because we want to do good will and I believe that we will.”
Washington said the panel was working diligently.
“I can say that we have had meetings — we have done some due diligence, we have had presentations, we’ve had speakers, we’ve had letters written,” he said.
Washington’s remarks came after a Virginian-Pilot article Sunday revealed that half of the commission’s members — a total of 10 — had resigned amid allegations from some that the commission was struggling with dysfunction and poor attendance.
Virginia Attorney General Jason Miyares then sent a scathing letter to the commission Wednesday, expressing his disappointment in the group and imploring it to focus on the objective at hand.
During the meeting, it was announced that an 11th member had resigned.
Washington, who previously told The Pilot that there was a range of reasons for the resignations, reiterated the point Wednesday and said the “whole message is not being told (by the media).”
He said some members quit due to family concerns, professional reasons, or other personal matters that were unrelated to concerns with the commission.
The chairman also shared that Joe Samaha, a Virginia resident whose daughter died in a mass shooting, has expressed interest in filling one of the vacant spots.
Samaha serves as president of the VTV Family Outreach Foundation, a nonprofit that assists mass shooting survivors nationwide. His daughter was killed in the shooting at Virginia Tech in 2007.
The commission was formed in the aftermath of a May 31, 2019, mass shooting at the Virginia Beach Municipal Center. A disgruntled city employee fatally shot 12 people and wounded four others before he was killed by police.
Ned Carlstrom, a former Virginia Beach city employee who survived the shooting, and Jason Nixon, whose wife was killed by the gunman, both spoke at the meeting.
Carlstrom said that some fellow survivors told him they don’t attend the commission’s meetings because they think the group is “not doing anything.”
“Please remember that this a real event that happened to real people,” Carlstrom said.
Nixon harshly rebuked the commission and questioned why it wasn’t pushing for subpoena power or to have fees for record requests waived.
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“What is the point of having an investigation if you can’t get any information?” he asked.
Nixon also urged the commission to be more transparent by filming its meetings and posting the footage online.
After the meeting, Washington told the newspaper that the issue of subpoena power was out of his control. He said the General Assembly’s legislation creating the commission did not grant the entity that authority.
Commission member David Cariens told The Pilot last week that he believed some members did not want to be “aggressive in investigating” and that he almost resigned last summer due to his frustrations.
In an email obtained by The Pilot, Rebecca Cowan, one of the members who resigned in November, shared serious concerns about the commission to Miyares and Virginia Beach Del. Kelly Convirs-Fowler.
In the email, Cowan wrote that she had “concerns that the commission’s work is being obstructed from within, either deliberately or due to negligence.”
Katie King, katie.king@virginiamedia.com