Three young brothers are dead after a shooting in Ohio on Thursday night and their father has been detained for questioning, according to officials.
Chad Doerman’s three sons, ages 3, 4 and 7, died in Monroe Township, a city located east of Cincinnati, according to the Clermont County Sheriff’s office. Clermont County Chief Deputy Chris Stratton said the 32-year-old father is cooperating with officials.
Around the time of the shooting, shortly after 4:15 p.m. Thursday, an unknown woman called 911 screaming that “her babies had been shot,” officials with the sheriff’s office said in a news release. Three minutes later, a separate caller who had driven by the scene told the 911 call taker that they’d seen an underage girl running down the road saying “her father was killing everyone.”
Responding sheriff’s deputies found Doerman, whom county records list as the owner of the home, sitting on a step outside.
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The deputies also found the three boys unresponsive in the yard with gunshot wounds. They tried life-saving measures until Monroe Fire/EMS arrived, but the boys died at the scene.
The boys’ mother, a 34-year-old woman, was also outside the home when deputies arrived with a gunshot wound to the hand. EMS transported her to the University of Cincinnati Medical Center, where Clermont County Sheriff Robert Leahy informed her that her boys had died.
Officers took Doerman to the county sheriff’s office to be interviewed by detectives, officials said.
The sheriff’s office said there was no sign of forced entry into the home and investigators are not looking for additional suspects.
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The bodies of the boys are being taken to the Hamilton County Coroner’s Office for autopsies.
Tracey Miller, superintendent of the New Richmond Exempted School District, said in a statement Thursday that grief counselors will be available at Monroe Elementary on Friday following the incident. Miller previously released a statement in March following the murder-suicide of a 13-year-old New Richmond middle school student who was among four who died.
“Our hearts are once again broken tonight as we yet again ask the community to lift up those affected by this horrific incident,” Miller said in a statement Thursday.
