DAYTON — The vague description of a male and rounds from a handgun he fired inside a barbershop on North Main Street are the only facts police have to work with from an incident Thursday afternoon that put children who were customers in danger and forced a nearby daycare to go into lockdown.
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“A person came inside a building, with kids inside a building getting their hair cut, and decided to come in and fire off two rounds inside the business,” Dayton police Sgt. Creigee S. Coleman told News Center 7 Reporter Brandon Lewis.
“This person possibly was trying to target this place,” the sergeant said. “We’re not sure.”
No one was injured, he said.
The sergeant said the police department is hoping someone saw what happened at the shop on North Main near Ridge Avenue, because the person walked out of the business and fired again -- this time at another building near the barbershop.
There were two barbers working at the time.
A daycare with an unknown number of children inside went into lockdown.
All of this was happening about 4:30 p.m.
Jewel Ray, a Dayton resident who said he arrived at the scene as people and police were leaving, expressed frustration about what happened because he knows the owner of the daycare has been a valuable business owner for as long as he can remember.
“That’s crazy to mess with her livelihood like that,” Ray said.
“He’s a coward,” Ray said of the shooter. “Any man that has to pick up a gun is a coward.”
Coleman said even though a police evidence technician did recover gunfire rounds from the business, the public will have to help police find the shooter because someone had to have seen or heard something occurring along the busy street.
“We cannot have this situation continuing in our community,” he said.
As of Thursday night, the only description of the shooter police had was that he was light-skinned, slender, wore his hair in dreads and may have left the location into a maroon car.
Coleman is asking anyone who saw anything to call police at 937-333-COPS or Montgomery County Regional Dispatch at 937-225-HELP.