Mom of slain teen warned son of nightclub shootings

Associated Press

FORT MYERS, FLA.

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 an extremist 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 semiautomatic 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.”