Unknown Hero May Have Knocked the Gun Out of Dayton Shooter's Hands

Tyler O'Neil | 3:20 PM on August 04, 2019

Shoes are piled outside the scene of a mass shooting including Ned Peppers bar, Sunday, Aug. 4, 2019, in Dayton, Ohio. Several people in Ohio have been killed in the second mass shooting in the U.S. in less than 24 hours, and the suspected shooter is also deceased, police said. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

Early Sunday morning, a lone gunman opened fire outside Ned Peppers in Dayton, Ohio. He killed nine — including his own sister — and wounded 26. Police shot him down, saving hundreds according to the mayor. Yet before police ended the altercation, an unknown hero reportedly grabbed the gun out of the shooter’s hands.

“He tried to go into the bar but did not make it through the door. Someone took the gun from him and he got shot and is dead,” a witness told WHIO-TV.

A witness tells @whiotv: “He tried to go into the bar but did not make it through the door. Someone took the gun from him and he got shot and is dead." #Dayton

— Brian Dorman (@BDormanTV) August 4, 2019

Dayton Mayor Nan Whaley said police officers who responded to the shooting within seconds saved “literally hundreds of lives” by keeping the shooter outside the crowded bar, the Daily Beast reported. While more than one eyewitness recalled that someone took the gun from the shooter’s hands, authorities have yet to confirm that account.

It seems hundreds in Dayton may owe their lives to an unknown hero and the police who took advantage of the situation to prevent the shooter from entering Ned Peppers.

Police kept the crime scene off-limits well into the morning, as freelance reporter Derek Myers noted.

Here is a picture of the rear of “Ned Peppers” and the crime scene tape. You can see clothes and shoes of club patrons on the pavement inside the police tape. pic.twitter.com/KNEWEp0AQm

— Derek Myers (@DerekMyers) August 4, 2019

On Facebook, locals who knew the shooter shared threats of violence he had made, particularly against women. “Connor seriously threatened to hurt women who rejected him, myself included,” one woman shared. “Channel 7 says they are avoiding saying his name, but I think we need to all talk about how [the shooter] has been openly talking about doing this for a decade and no one could do anything about it. Luke and I went to Bellbrook with him. He got kicked out because they found a notebook of his where he was planning violence, primarily towards women.”

It seems many more people — women, in particular — would have died had the unknown hero, if reports are true, not taken the gun from the shooter’s hands and had police not put him down.

Follow Tyler O’Neil, the author of this article, on Twitter at @Tyler2ONeil.