Victim of Cincinnati shooting hopes 'to make a difference in the future'

One of the victims of the shooting at a downtown Cincinnati bank is “thankful” to all who rendered her aid and is thinking about how she can make a difference in the future, she said in a statement.

Whitney Austin was on the phone and unaware of the commotion when she walked into the lobby of the Fifth Third Center bank, where she suffered “multiple gunshot wounds” in the Thursday afternoon barrage, according to the statement.

Austin is “especially grateful” to the two officers who “carried her out of the line of fire after she was shot,” the statement says. She was taken to the University of Cincinnati Medical Center where she was listed in stable condition.

“I’m still processing the events from yesterday, the impact to the victims, to me and the community. And I’m thinking about how I can make a difference in the future,” she said in a statement Friday morning. “I’m so thankful to the paramedics and first responders, and the doctors, nurses and staff at UC Medical.”

Her husband of 12 years, Waller Austin, said in the statement that Whitney is a fighter and is in good spirits.

Whitney Austin, a senior product manager for digital lending at Fifth Third Bank and the mother of two children, ages 5 and 7, said in the statement the family was “overwhelmed by the support we have received from coworkers, family, friends, and total strangers.”

Surveillance video of the incident released on Friday shows 29-year-old Omar Perez walking through the bank lobby with a Taurus 9 mm semi-automatic handgun pointed forward. He can be seen “taking shots at anyone he sees,” Cincinnati Police Chief Eliot Isaac said during a press conference Friday.

The shooting lasted about 4 minutes, 28 seconds from the time he fired his first round to when he was felled by officers. In the video, he can be seen near the security turnstiles as police officers begin firing at him through the window. Moments later, he appears to see officers approaching and turns around to run, but is propelled forward after being shot. Four officers fired a total of 11 rounds at Perez, but it has yet to be determined how many times he was hit.

Perez fired a total of 35 rounds during the shooting, and he had about 200 rounds of extra ammunition in the briefcase he was carrying, Isaac said. Investigators have not yet determined a motive for the shooting, but police believe he may have been slowly working his way to the federal courthouse.