'The Officer Saved All of Us': Dayton Mass Shooting Survivor Recounts Night of Terror
Less than 24 hours after a mass shooting in Texas, the country was getting news of a new atrocity overnight.
A man reportedly wearing body armor and firing a “long gun” killed at least nine victims early Sunday in a Dayton, Ohio, nightlife area, according to news reports.
And while police stopped the gunman almost immediately after the shooting began, it could have been much worse, the mayor said.
The shooting started about 1 a.m. in Dayton’s Oregon District, a bustling area of restaurants, bars and shopping where “thousands” of people were enjoying a weekend night out, Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley said at a Sunday morning news conference, according to Fox News.
“The shooter was able to kill nine people and injure 26 in less than a minute,” Whaley said.
“And if we did not have police in the Oregon District, and [there were] the thousands of people in the Oregon District enjoying a Saturday evening, what we could have had in this city…”
Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley: “The shooter was able to kill 9 people and injure 26 in less than a minute.” pic.twitter.com/Gu3GoEoRCj
— Keith Boykin (@keithboykin) August 4, 2019
“If Dayton police had not gotten to the scene in under a minute, hundreds of people in the Oregon District could be dead today,” Whaley said, according to Fox.
One witness told Dayton’s WHIO how police officers saved his life.
“Gunshots. Just loud gunshots everywhere,” Dayton resident Robert Woodruff told the station.
“You couldn’t hear nothing but that. Everybody’s just screaming, running… trying to get away.”
He said he was five to 10 feet away from gunman.
“I was on one side of the car and he was on the other side of the car,” Woodruff said.
Check out the interview here.
Woodruff said he and others tried to duck for cover as the gunman fired.
“Until the officer came and started shooting it out with the guy,” he said. “The officer saved all of us.”
But the bullets kept flying — and victims kept dropping around him.
“I thought I was about to die until the officer was standing over the top of me he started shooting at the guy,” he said.
The gunman was shot dead by police, CNN reported.
Neither the gunman nor victims had been identified Sunday morning.
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