Shooting in Dayton, Ohio, kills at least 9

At least nine people were killed and 26 were wounded in a shooting early Sunday in Dayton, Ohio, the second American mass shooting in less than 24 hours and the third in a week.

The shooting began at 1:07 a.m. on East Fifth Street in the city’s Oregon entertainment district, which was bustling with thousands of late-night revelers, Mayor Nan Whaley said. Uniformed officers on routine patrol in the area quickly responded, shooting and killing the gunman within one minute of his first gunshots, she said.

“While this is a terribly sad day for our city, I am amazed by the quick response of Dayton Police that saved literally hundreds of lives,” she said at a news conference.

Whaley said victims were receiving treatment at several local hospitals. Terrea Little, a spokeswoman at Miami Valley Hospital, confirmed the hospital had received 16 patients from the shooting, but had no information on their conditions.

An employee at Ned Peppers, a bar on the street, wrote in a post on Instagram that “all of our staff is safe and our hearts go out to everyone involved as we gather information.”

Little was immediately known about the gunman.

The police have not identified the gunman or a motive for the attack.

But he appeared ready to exact an even higher death toll. He was outfitted in body armor, carrying a rifle with multiple high-capacity magazines, Whaley said.

There were no immediate clues to what might have motivated him. No manifesto or social media presence has been found so far.

A particularly brutal week for gun violence.

It was the latest tragedy in one of the worst weeks in memory for gun violence in the United States. The shooting came less than a day after a gunman in El Paso left at least 20 dead and 26 others wounded inside a Walmart store. Last week, a gunman killed three people and wounded 13 others in a shooting at a garlic festival in Gilroy, California.

In all, there have been at least 32 mass shootings, defined as three or more killings in a single episode, in the United States this year.

On Twitter, most of the trending topics — the subjects talked about the most — were about gun violence. At one point Sunday morning, so many people used the phrase “another shooting” it became one of the nation’s top 10 topics.