2 teens killed, 20 injured in Fort Myers club shooting at teen disco night

Two teenagers were killed and more than a dozen people shot at a nightclub in Fort Myers, Florida, early Monday morning, in an attack authorities said they were still investigating but insisted was not an act of terror.

Gunfire erupted outside Club Blu, at 3580 Evans Avenue, at about 12:38 a.m., where police found at least 16 victims suffering from gunshot wounds in the parking lot, police Capt. Jim Mulligan said. Victims as young as 12 and as old as 27 were taken by Lee County Emergency Medical Services to local hospitals, and two teens — Stef’An Strawder, 18, and Sean Archilles, 14 — died in the gunfire, police said.

The investigation was still ongoing Monday afternoon, with three people in custody and police actively searching for others, said Fort Myers police chief Dennis Eads in a press conference. Eads promised “justice will be served,” as Florida Gov. Rick Scott urged citizens to speak up about suspicious behavior.

Scott, responding to questions about the attack’s proximity to the Orlando mass shooting a month prior, rejected the idea that gun laws might be at fault in Monday morning’s shooting. “The Second Amendment has never shot anybody,” Scott said. “Evil does this.”

Attorney General Pam Bondi, who also spoke at the press conference, said her office would pay for Strawder and Archilles’ funeral expenses after the attack.

Club Blu had advertised a “Swimsuit Glow Party” Sunday night open to people of all ages on its Facebook page, and said in a since-deleted post that the party was “a middle school/high school event.” According to the club, the gunfire broke out as young attendees were being picked up from the event.

Syreeta Gary, whose daughter was at the club when the shooting broke out, told TV station Fox 4 that her daughter’s friend was shot in the leg as they tried to escape.

“I just thank God that my daughter is okay, because she could have been shot,” Gary told the station. “Her dodging bullets and running and dropping between cars, it’s ridiculous that these kids have to go through this. They can’t enjoy themselves because you have other people that have criminal minds and they just want to terrorize things.”

Lee Memorial Hospital spokeswoman Cheryl Garn told the Times that the hospital treated 16 victims in the trauma center and emergency department, one of whom died, and that another victim was treated at Cape Coral Hospital nearby. She said Monday morning that four were still hospitalized and that two were in critical condition.

News of the shooting unfolded on Facebook early Monday, as patrons and witnesses posted about the gunshots they saw and heard. Another club patron wrote she heard the gunshots outside and hid under a table as the attack occurred, TV station WINK reported. “Everyone tried to run and duck for cover. I’m sorry I’m so shaken up,” she wrote, according to the station.

A nearby resident who witnessed the shooting wrote on Facebook that she first heard the gunshots as she was sitting in the car in her apartment complex with her sister and friends, and that they ran into her building when they heard the sound of bullets get closer. “My ears are still ringing,” she wrote.

The names of the injured were not immediately available, but a man who wrote on Facebook that he was headed to Club Blu that night posted a brief livestream of himself in a hospital bed several hours later.

“I don’t [wanna] die,” he posted on Facebook around the time of the shooting.

The club posted a status on Facebook shortly after the shooting criticizing commenters for speculating about the attack, before replacing the status with another expressing sadness for the victims and asserting that the event had had armed security. “There was nothing more we could [have] done,” the club wrote.

Online state records from the Department of Business and Professional Regulation showed the alcohol license for Club Blu was revoked early last month over an incident the previous year, though no details were available, the Associated Press reported. The same records also showed a 2014 complaint for "criminal activity" was filed and that the club was given an official notice.

The Club Blu shooting comes more than a month after a gay nightclub shooting in Orlando that was the deadliest shooting in modern U.S. history. The shooting at the Pulse nightclub on June 12 left 49 victims dead and 53 others wounded.

This story was originally published July 25, 2016 at 5:11 AM with the headline "2 teens killed, 20 injured in Fort Myers club shooting at teen disco night."