A city pulls together ... one embrace at a time

Ned Peppers, the bar at the epicenter of the mass shooting in the Oregon District, opened at its normal time Monday.

Less than 48 hours before, nine people were murdered and 32 injured outside the bar on East Fifth Street.

The manager at Ned Peppers, who asked not to be named, said he needed to open the bar for his regular customers after the shooting.

“It’s important that we’re open for the local people. We’re a staple for people down here, and they need normalcy,” he said. “One guy is not going to shut down a city.”

In the hours that followed, members of the community brought flowers, candles and handwritten cards to the front of Ned Peppers, forming a memorial to those who had died near the bar.

Annette Gibson-Strong said she heard the bars on East Fifth Street planned to open Monday. She came to move the memorials that had popped up along the street. She wanted to make sure nothing was thrown away.

Tears streaming down her cheeks, she painstakingly moved each item that had been laid in front of the door at Ned Peppers and Hole in the Wall bar next door.

“It was hard, but it had to be done,” Gibson-Strong said. “These babies ain’t even in the ground yet. They need to be remembered for how they was. They were somebody.”

Gibson-Strong said she lost her own son to homicide 27 years ago, so the deaths Sunday morning hit close to home.

“People always say they know what you’re going through,” Gibson-Strong said. “They don’t. They can’t.”

Gibson-Strong said that if not for the staff at Ned Peppers, the situation could have been a lot worse.

“It would have been a massacre,” Gibson-Strong said.

The manager at Ned Peppers said his employees were performing CPR and first aid on victims immediately after the shooting started.

The staff is trained on crisis situations, he said, and their action was needed.

TY GREENLEES / STAFF Harry Payne is hugged by Jean Davies, left, and Mary K. Curtis as he arrived on East Fifth Street on Monday to leave flowers for his slain friend Logan Turner. Turner and eight other people were gunned down early Sunday morning in Dayton’s Oregon District leaving the district, the city and the nation to cope with the aftermath.

BONNIE MEIBERS/STAFF Annette Gibson-Strong heard the bars on East Fifth Street planned to open Monday, so she came to move the memorials from the doors to make sure nothing would get thrown away.