DAYTON, Ohio — The business owners and local residents near Oregon District are walking through the popular restaurant and bar area mourning the loss of nine community members, while eyeing the hordes of media crews that have descended on Dayton, Ohio.
Officials say that as of 11 a.m. Monday, eleven people were still in the hospital for their injuries.
Dayton Police Chief Richard Biehl said investigators are still sifting through the evidence they collected on the scene, but that if all the shooter’s magazines were full, he could have been carrying as many as 250 rounds of ammunition. Chief Biehl said investigators determined the shooter fired 41 rounds in the rampage that lasted less than 30 seconds.
“It’s devastating,” said Mary Jo Kochmar when she walked by the growing memorial Monday morning. “It’s terrible and it will never be the same. Coming by here will never be the same again.”
While she was honoring the victims, there was one additional person on her mind.
“The poor mother,” said Kochmar. “That’s who I think about, the mother.”
One of the shooter’s victims was his own sister. Police say they don’t know enough to determine if she was intentionally shot or happened to be in the wrong place at the wrong time. But she and the shooter arrived to the Oregon District together before splitting up.
Kochmar is a mother herself, and luckily enough, even though she and her kids like to come through Dayton’s Oregon District, none of them where in a shooter’s cross hairs this weekend.
With nine people killed and more than two dozen injured, April Jones says the shooting has ripped through the whole community.
“You know somebody that knows somebody that was affected,” said Jones.
Just a day after Governor Mike DeWine was shouted down by people who attended a vigil for the victims, telling him to “do something” about gun violence, Jones hopes tragedy leads to action.
“Don’t just talk behind the scenes,” said Jones. “Get out in the open, stand up, because this keeps going on. This needs to stop and the only way it’s going to stop is to vote.”
