As clubgoers danced away on Saturday night, armed men hoping to settle a daylong score opened fire inside Cincinnati’s Cameo nightclub in the bloodiest mass shooting in the nation so far this year. One man died of his injuries and 15 others were injured, the Cincinnati Enquirer reports. The violence at 1:30 a.m. triggered a sweeping panic inside the packed club while patrons raced to flee. Once on the scene to triage victims, police and firefighters had to step over wounded bodies to determine which patients needed the most immediate care, said Dan Hils of the Cincinnati Fraternal Order of Police. Investigators scoured the city for the people responsible for the shootings. The Rev. Peterson Mingo of Evanston’s Christ Temple Church said he and other leaders of the African-American community have heard from citizens who “have been giving us names and we’re sending them to the police, and they say they’re cooperating.”
“People were just going to have a good time, and they got shot. That is totally unacceptable,” said Mayor John Cranley. City Manager Harry Black said the shooting was the culmination of a squabble “between two specific groups or individuals earlier in the day, escalating and ultimately leading to this tragedy.” Cameo had paid for four off-duty police officers to patrol the parking lot, and they were the first to respond to the shooting, Hils, the FOP president, said. “They saw a lot of the patrons running out in an absolute panic,” Hils said. “They were literally stepping over victims to get to more critically injured victims. So you’re talking about a very horrific scene there. They tried everything they could to save the one gentleman’s life. They performed CPR, the police officer did, but to no avail.”