Damon Davenport Jr. said he got to the Historic Oregon District as quickly as he could, but it was too late.
Two of his cousins, including one who was like a brother, were gone. And now, Davenport wants answers about what happened and why during the mass shootings in nearby Dayton Sunday morning.
"It hurts. It hurts," he said.
When Davenport's mother called him at 7 a.m., they were still hoping for the best.
"Said there had been other people killed but she didn't know the number," he told WCPO.
But good news about their loved ones would never come.
"She called me back about 15 minutes later - hysterical - and I was trying to get some sleep, but she woke me up saying that my cousin had passed. He was dead."
So Davenport said he had no choice but to be here, feet away from where his cousins - Thomas McNchols and Lois "Lola" Oglesby - were shot and killed along with seven others outside a Dayton bar. Both leave behind small children.
"These were everyday working people that had families that cared about them, that had jobs, that had children, and they can't tell their story. They can't. They're dead. So, somebody has to be that voice."
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As investigators dig for answers, Davenport is asking, too.
"What was the shooter thinking? Could he have been stopped? Could somebody just have pulled him to the side, ya know?" Davenport asked.
Since he knows he'll never really have the answers, Davenport is demanding action from elected officials here and nationwide.
"Do something, Seriously, do something," he said. "That's all I want. Do something."
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And he wants justice for his cousins.
"His name is still going to be in the light, but what about the justice of those ones like Thomas McNichols that couldn't speak for himself last night? My other cousin, Lola, that got shot in the doorway, point-blank range, dead in the head? Where's the justice for them?" Davenport said.
Davenport is not sure what, if any, connection his cousins had to the shooter.
