About 150 miles southwest of Orlando in the Gulf Coast city of Fort Myers, Club Blu was hosting a “swimsuit glow party” for people all ages, according to a flyer posted on Twitter by local television station WINK. While it’s not yet clear what triggered the violence, police have ruled out terrorism. Two are in fair condition and two are still in ICU, according to Drew Mikulaschek, a doctor with Lee Memorial Trauma Center.
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Investigators had yet to determine a motive and were trying to identify the two people who were killed, the statement said.
They include several incidents of aggravated assault, weapons charges and aggravated battery.
The call alerting police to the shooting was received at 12.30 a.m.
The chaplain for Fort Myers Police also attended the prayer circle.
We found Samuels was arrested back in 2004 and again in 2005.
Department of Business and Professional Regulation records show two separate shootings occurred just outside the club on the same night in May 2015.
State records show this wasn’t the first time violence had broken out at Club Blu.
We went to Samuels home today and left him messages but so far we have not heard from him.
Juss Olivia posted a Facebook video describing how she hid under a vehicle and then ran to escape the “nonstop spraying” of bullets.
In a Facebook post early Monday attributed to Club Blu, the nightclub said it is “deeply sorry” and that “there was nothing more we could have done”. “He would guide you and give you advice on how to step up your game and how to guard him and things like that”, said 16-year-old Peyton Hebon, who started playing against Strawder in travel basketball leagues in sixth grade.
In this frame from video, people gather near the scene of a fatal shooting at Club Blu nightclub in Fort Myers, Fla., Monday, July 25, 2016.
One of the dead is Stef’An Strawder, 18, who was going to be a senior this season at Lehigh Senior High School and who the Fort Myers News-Press had picked as one of three finalists for basketball player of the year.
“We just want everybody to be safe”, Gov. Rick Scott told reporters at a news conference in Fort Myers. “We will continue to pray for the victims and their families”, the statement reads.
She said her daughter and a friend fled a gunman as he fired-and her daughter’s friend was shot in the leg. The post from the Fort Myers nightclub says armed security had been posted at the event inside and outside.
Officials said the victims ranged in ages from 12 to 27 years old.
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But in an email, police Capt. Jim Mulligan says the street will remain closed as authorities investigate. “We flood communities with so many guns that it is easier for a teenager to buy a Glock than get his hands on a computer or even a book”, he said at a recent memorial service for five police officers shot in Dallas. The massacre at Orlando’s Pulse nightclub last month killed 49 patrons and wounded dozens.
