Fifth Third Center Active Shooter, September 2018

May 7, 2019
If there is one thing we constantly get reminded of, it's that there is no "common" active shooter. They all are different and we can only standardize response so much to be effective.

On September 6, 2018, one Omar Santa Perez entered the lobby of the Fifth Third Center (that’s an odd name) in Cincinnati, Ohio and began shooting people with a handgun. When he was done, there were three dead and two wounded for a total of six casualties. The mainstream media, as always, reported seven total casualties with four fatalities because they included the perpetrator. Santa-Perez began his attack just after 9a.m., and one can assume that was essentially the beginning of the work day at this center of commerce in Cincinnati.

This event marks one of the first wherein the police response was quick enough to allow for the shooter to be neutralized by responding officers AND wherein the videos from body cameras worn by the responding officers showed both the perpetrator shooting and then being neutralized by shots from the officers. Typically, sheer distance and time prohibit such from occurring, but the responding police were close enough this time that the shooter’s impact was limited.

Reports of the event differ in that some say Santa-Perez was in the building lobby while others state he was in a bank lobby in that building shooting. Two of the fatalities were bank employees and one was a contractor allegedly working at the bank, so that’s where the bank-tie-in may have come from. The remaining two victims, shot and injured but not fatally, could easily have been bank customers or simply other pedestrians with business in the building.

At least four officers responded to the report of an active shooter in the Fifth Third Center and reportedly all four engaged Santa-Perez, shooting him multiple times. The body camera video released by the Cincinnati PD shows that Santa-Perez apparently didn’t have any specific targets in mind, but was instead shooting whomever appeared in his sights or caught his attention. When the police shot Santa-Perez, their shots were fired through a window originally and then follow on shots were fired through the window frame.

Santa-Perez weapon of choice that day was a Taurus PT-809E handgun chambered in 9mm. Mainstream media reports made much of the fact that the weapon was loaded with “standard and hollow-point ammunition,” as if they couldn’t report on the difference between full-metal-jacket ball ammo and hollow-point ammo. Santa-Perez reportedly had “hundreds of rounds” of ammunition on his person at the time of the attack, but no information could be found at the time of this writing on how many loaded magazines he had. For an experienced shooter, there’s a distinct difference in time required to reload a weapon depending on whether or not you first have to load the magazines, or if you have a supply of preloaded magazines.

Post-incident investigation reportedly didn’t reveal any connection between Santa-Perez and his victims. It appeared that he was just shooting randomly and for an unknown reason. One of his victims was shot twelve times but recovered. In the history of active shooter events, to have a single victim shot that many times is unique. Most active shooter perpetrators want to shoot/wound/kill as many victims as possible so they don’t spend more than one to three shots per victim.

While, in many cases, body camera video won’t be released because of its evidentiary nature and (usually) on-going criminal investigations, the Cincinnati PD released selected video just two days after the event. The video clearly showed Santa-Perez engaging victims with multiple shots and apparently with no selection process, just completely at random dependent on who he saw moving. The video showed the officers’ response, shooting through a window in the lobby, and Santa-Perez being neutralized.

If there are lessons to be learned here they would be that 1) active shooter attacks definitely aren’t confined to schools, but can occur anywhere there is a high density of people (potential targets) and 2) no active shooter is “typical.” In most cases, as noted, fewer rounds per victim are spent. In this case, Santa-Perez spent nearly an entire magazine (if not an entire magazine) shooting one victim. Thankfully that victim survived.

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