At Least 9 Injured After Mass Shooting in Downtown Cincinnati

At least nine people were injured early Sunday morning after a mass shooting took place in Cincinnati. 

NBC News reports gunfire erupted around 1:39 a.m. in the Over-the-Rhine district, a prominent nightlife area in downtown Cincinnati. Police say nine people were taken to area hospitals for non-life-threatening injuries.

Cincinnati Police Assistant Chief Michael John told WHIO-TV a police officer opened fire on the presumed suspect, but it is unclear if that shot struck the individual. The suspect remains at large as of Sunday afternoon.

“We have one Cincinnati police officer that discharge one round, and we do not know if that officer struck the individual that he was firing the gun at,” John told reporters early Sunday morning. “What I can tell you is the individual he was shooting at was actively firing a firearm at that time.”

On Sunday morning, Cinncinnati Mayor Aftab Pureval shared a statement, saying, “My heart goes out to the victims and their families.”

“Today’s events are completely and totally unacceptable,” Pureval continued. “The use of guns to solve disputes cannot become a normal part of our culture.”

Lindsay Swadner, the owner of The Hub, a bar close to where the shooting took place, told WLWT-TV she heard 30 shots outside the bar. She walked outside to find multiple people with gunshot wounds.

“There was probably about 25 to 30 shots fired off in two separate rounds. You had first where it went ‘bang, bang, bang, bang,’ we all start looking around going, ‘Was it over?’ And then you heard ‘bang, bang, bang, bang’ and everyone started running inside of wherever you could go,” Swadner explained. “And so we started pulling people inside. I made sure everyone was inside, I walked up the street to see what happened and there was, of course, more shooting victims, I’m not sure how many.”