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| A police vehicle blocks off the area near Club Blu after a fatal shooting in Fort Myers, Fla., Monday, July 25, 2016. |
FORT MYERS,
Fla. (AP) -- With the Orlando massacre still fresh on everyone's
mind, the mother of a young man who was slain at a nightclub early
Monday had warned her son about what to do if there were a shooting:
"hit the floor, find a table."
But when
gunfire erupted at the Club Blu parking lot, 18-year-old Stef'an
Strawder didn't have anywhere to hide. He was killed along with a
14-year-old boy, and 17 other people ranging in age from 12 to 27 were
wounded during a swimsuit-themed party for teens.
"I
told him to look for all the exits if any kind of shooting would go
off, to hit the floor, find a table and get out of the way ... because I
thought about the people in Orlando. That was a big thing," Strawder's
mother, Stephanie White, told The Associated Press.
Since the shooting happened in the parking lot, "He didn't have that chance," she said.
Florida
is again reeling from a mass shooting at a nightclub, but instead of
being committed by a terrorist spouting Islamist ideology, this rampage
may have started with an argument over a rap performance. Police have
not yet released a motive.
The shooting at a
venue tucked in a strip mall also left 14-year-old Sean Archilles dead,
and a state and its governor grappling with another tragedy. The
massacre at Orlando's Pulse nightclub last month killed 49 and wounded
dozens of others.
"The positive is we are at a
45-year low in our crime rate. The negatives - I can't imagine this
happening to any person in our state.
I don't want this to happen to
anybody in my state. The 20 million people who live here, the probably
150 million people who visit here. We just want everybody to be safe,"
Gov. Rick Scott
told reporters at a news conference in Fort Myers.
He said gun laws are not to blame. "The Second Amendment has never shot anybody. The evil did this."
Fort
Myers interim Police Chief Dennis Eads said the shooting was not an act
of terror.
Police detained three people and were searching for others,
he added. He declined to give a motive for the shooting or discuss
details, saying the investigation is ongoing.
Hours after the shooting,
police had marked more than two dozen shell casings in the parking lot
outside the club.
The shooting happened about 12:30 a.m. Monday, just as the club was closing and parents were picking up their children.
Security
guard Brandy Mclaughlin, who was hired for the event, said she saw
someone with a semi-automatic rifle open fire, with the attack sounding
like "firecrackers." Her car was hit in the spray of bullets.
"The
rapper was upset, someone not being able to perform," she said. "It
wasn't targeted, terrorist or gays, or anything like that. It wasn't a
black or white situation. It was an idiot. An idiot with a firearm."
Club
owner Cheryl Filardi, who said she was in the back room when the shots
rang out, said at least 10 security guards were hired for the party -
two in the parking lot, one or two at the door and the rest floating
inside.
She said the club has had four or five
teen parties over the past half-dozen years, and this was the second
one this summer. She said the parties are something positive for a rough
and often-violent neighborhood.
"To be honest
with you, every day someone's getting shot in this area. These days in
Lee County, somebody's always shooting," Filardi said. "If we do teen
parties, we always have a ton of security and we've never had a
problem."
While beer posters still hung in its
windows, Club Blu's alcohol license was revoked June 7 because of an
incident that occurred a year ago, according to records from the
Department of Business and Professional Regulation.
The same records
show that a complaint was filed in 2014 for "criminal activity" and that
the club was given an official notice. Further details were not
available.
There were bullet holes in concrete
planters and wooden support beams outside the club. Sheriff's evidence
markers were still affixed to the holes. The letter "A'' was attached
near a post, while nearby "L," ''M," ''N" and "O'' were marked near a
planter filled with scraggly foliage.
The
youngest to die, Archilles, lived about a mile from the nightclub, and
loved to play football and basketball, said his father, Jean Archilles.
"He liked to make people laugh. He's a funny kid. He's always joking," Jean Archilles said.
Strawder starred on the Lehigh High School basketball team, averaging more than 15 points a game as a junior.
His sister also was at the party and was shot in the leg. She's home from the hospital.
"She didn't know she was shot because she was looking for her brother."
All
around the home in the Fort Myers suburb of Lehigh Acres were
testaments to Strawder's athletic ability.
From the baby photo of him
with a football on his lap - a ball nearly as big as he was - to the
photos of him over the years on the court, to the dozens of trophies
lining the cabinets, it was clear that his family adored him and his
abilities.
He was the kind of guy who, even if he didn't have much money, he'd pay for meals for teammates, his mother said.
White
clutched photos of her son while sitting in a chair in her home. The
television was on, loud, and turned to the local news. A story came on
about the shootings.
"My son," said White, waving a hand at the television. "There's another picture of him."
