Dan Horn and Sharon Coolidge, Cincinnati Enquirer
Published 10:51 a.m. ET Sept. 8, 2018 | Updated 5:38 p.m. ET Sept. 8, 2018
He could have been anyone, going anywhere. A young man in a white buttoned-down shirt and dark pants, black work bag slung over his shoulder, walking across Fountain Square on a Thursday morning. He made a few stops around the square. Maybe he was looking for a good cup of coffee or a doughnut, or a pastry from Graeter’s. Maybe he wanted a quick breakfast before heading to the office. He blended into the crowd, moving among the bankers and accountants and lawyers and clerks and secretaries as if he were one of them. As if he belonged. But he didn’t.
Omar Santa Perez wasn’t going to work or catching a bus. He wasn’t here for a job interview or a meeting.
In his bag, Santa Perez carried a 9 mm handgun and 250 bullets. In his mind, he carried something else entirely. Malice? Anger? Grievances?
Police will spend days or weeks trying to find a reason for what happened next, trying to explain what was going on in the head of a man who might have struggled to explain it himself.
When he’d finished walking around Fountain Square, Santa Perez sat for several minutes at a table near the entrance to the lobby of Fifth Third Center. He sipped coffee from a Starbucks cup. He spoke to no one.
Days later, people would remember seeing him there, alone. But Thursday morning, he was part of the crowd. He could have been anyone, going anywhere.
No one noticed him at all, really, until he rose from his chair at 9:06 a.m. and walked into the lobby, black bag still slung over his shoulder.
…..
Eboni Ginyard stopped pouring the coffee at the Dunkin Donuts counter as soon as she heard the first shot. She didn’t recognize the sound at first and thought maybe it was coming from the construction site nearby.
But then she heard it again. And again.
Bam. Bam.
Ginyard looked around and saw her customers hit the floor, and she did the same. Those were gunshots, she thought, and they were close. More shots followed and she realized they were coming from the Fifth Third lobby, adjacent to her doughnut shop.
She heard breaking glass and screaming. She smelled gunpowder.
They all laid as flat as they could on the floor and Ginyard didn’t dare lift her head to get a better look. She was sure she’d die if she did.
The shooting stopped, resumed, and stopped again. And that’s when Ginyard got even more scared.
He’s reloading, she thought. He has so many bullets he can stop and reload.
…..
On the other side of Walnut Street, Roger Higginbotham was working at the construction site. It was loud work, so he wasn’t sure about all the noise coming from Fifth Third Center.
He spotted a homeless man crouching near his truck.
“Somebody’s shooting a gun!” the man said.
Higginbotham started walking toward the gunfire. He knew it probably wasn’t his brightest move, but he wanted to know what was going on.
From the sidewalk, he saw a man in the lobby with a gun. Through the Dunkin Donuts window, he could see two women huddled together on the floor.
They looked terrified. They looked as scared as anyone he’d ever seen.
…..
At Graeter’s, on the other side of the building, a woman named Bella typed 911 into her cell phone and waited.
She was hiding in a bathroom.
“What’s going on?” the operator asked.
“I don’t know,” Bella said. “We’re hearing what kind of sounded like gunshots.”
Bella’s voice dropped to a whisper. She sounded as if she might cry. “Alright, sweetheart,” the operator said, “I want you to stay where you are.”
“Have you gotten other calls?” Bella asked.
“We’ve got hundreds of calls,” the operator said.
…..
 |
| A screen grab from a Cincinnati Police officer's body cam during the response to the active shooter Thursday morning at Fifth Third Center in Fountain Square. (Photo: Provided) |
The police officers were already on Walnut Street near Fountain Square when they heard the shots and ran together toward the Fifth Third lobby.
Guns drawn, officers Jennifer Chilton, Gregory Toyeas, Antonio Etter and Eric Kaminsky spread out in a line as they approached the gunfire, taking cover in different spots along the wall and between windows to make it harder for the gunman to zero in on them all.
“On your shoulder,” Chilton told the officer in front of her, letting him know she was there.
As they approached, the pace of the shooting picked up. So much was happening at once. The shots. The breaking glass.
They needed to stop the gunman and they needed to do it fast. But first, they had to find him.
…..
Santa Perez walked quickly through the lobby, with purpose, right arm extended with the 9 mm in his hand.
He shot at people diving under desks. He shot at people running away. He shot at people in an elevator, spraying bullets at the door as it closed.
Unarmed security guards pulled workers around corners and out of the line of fire.
But five times, Santa Perez found his mark.
Whitney Austin, a 37-year-old from Louisville, had her cell phone to her ear as she entered the lobby’s revolving doors. She was on a conference call for work.
A bullet struck her immediately, knocking her to the floor. Santa Perez kept firing at her.
Austin was shot 12 times in all, but she never lost consciousness. She and Brian Sarver, a man who was also shot in the lobby, would survive their wounds. Three others would not.
Richard Newcomer, 64, was supervising a construction project on the building’s third floor. Prudhvi Raj Kandepi, 25, was a programmer and consultant for Fifth Third. Luis Calderon, 48, moved to Cincinnati last year to work for the bank.
All three died in the chaos. And Santa Perez kept walking, hand extended, firing at anything that moved.
…..
Michael Richardson was on the square, smoking a cigarette, when he saw Austin walk into the building. Then heard the shots and saw her drop.
More shots followed and Richardson took cover, but he kept watching. He saw a security guard or a police officer, he’s not sure which, grab Austin and drag her away from the shattered glass and gunfire.
Her shirt was covered in blood.
…..
From an office building on Fifth Street, across from the square, a man watched from his office window, cell phone in hand, recording the violence below.
He posted it all on Facebook: The police converging on the building. People running from the square. The sound of distant gunshots.
"It's crazy," he said.
A woman in the office with him agreed. "You always see it on the news," she said, "but when it hits home..."
She didn't finish the sentence.
"Yeah," he said. "I know."
.....
Sirens wailed in the background as the man spoke. He told the 911 operator he was on Fountain Square.
“A lot of people are running around saying there’s a shooter,” he said.
“Have you seen anybody with a gun or anything?”
“No, I haven’t seen anybody. I’ve heard things that sound like gunshots, though.”
…..
The four police officers spotted Santa Perez through the window as he walked past, his arm still extended, still firing.
Chilton yelled to her fellow officers. “Shots, shots, shots!”
The gun used by Omar Enrique Santa Perez fatal shooting spree is shown during a press conference on Friday, Sept. 7, 2018, in Cincinnati. Buy Photo
The gun used by Omar Enrique Santa Perez fatal shooting spree is shown during a press conference on Friday, Sept. 7, 2018, in Cincinnati. (Photo: Albert Cesare / The Enquirer, )
She stepped from behind a wall and fired several shots. Each smashed through the lobby window and scattered glass everywhere. The other officers fired, too, and the sound echoed across the square, as if someone was firing a machine gun.
There was swearing and confusion. And then nothing. Silence.
The officers crept closer until one of them could see through the shattered window.
“Suspect down!”
…..
Even from a distance, Kick Lee could tell everything was wrong at Fountain Square. He heard sirens and saw people running.
He walked this way every morning before going to work at his recording studio. He liked to get a coffee and just wander a bit, clear his head.
As he passed a group of kids, they shouted to him. “He’s got a gun!” they said. “He’s got a gun!”
Lee didn’t hear any shooting. He saw police, though, maybe more than he’d ever seen. They were swarming all over the square.
They closed down everything, the entire square, right there in the heart of the city.
“Oh, my God,” he thought. “What can I do?”
…..
The officers edged closer and tugged open one of the doors to the lobby. Santa Perez was on the floor, face down. His black bag was next to him, his gun beyond his reach.
He wasn’t moving. The lobby was quiet.
The officers kept moving closer, guns still drawn and pointed at Santa Perez. It was 9:10 a.m., 4 minutes and 28 seconds after it began.
“I’m with you,” Chilton said to the officer in front of her. “I’m with you.”
Then, once more.
“I’m with you.”
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