Florida shooting: 2 dead and 17 injured

Two people were killed and at least 17 were wounded in a shooting early Monday morning at a nightclub in Fort Myers, in southwestern Florida, according to the city’s Police Department and to local news reports.

WINK, the CBS station in the area, attributed the toll to Capt. Jim Mulligan of the Police Department, but another official at the department, reached by telephone, confirmed only that the shooting had taken place.

Police officers were called to Club Blu, a nightclub on Evans Avenue, almost three south of City Hall, around 12:30 a.m. Monday. They came upon “several victims suffering from gunshot wounds” in the parking lot of the nightclub, WINK quoted a police statement as saying.

WINK reported that the authorities were searching two other sites in the city — one on Parkway Street, the other on Ortiz Avenue. One person has been held for questioning.

A poster circulated online showed that the nightclub had hosted an indoor “swimsuit glow party” Sunday evening, with live performances.

The attack occurred just 43 days after a gunman killed 49 people and wounded more than 50 others at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla. The attacker, Omar Mateen, who took hostages at the nightclub and was killed in a police shootout, had sworn allegiance to the Islamic State.

The June 12 massacre in Orlando, which authorities described as the worst mass shooting by a single assailant in United States history, stunned the country and spurred moves in Congress for tighter gun control.

The underlying motive for the killing, however, has continued to elude investigators. Federal officials note that Mr. Mateen had most likely been radicalized online to some extent. But several people have also come forward with accounts that claim Mr. Mateen had previously visited gay nightclubs or had had romantic encounters with men.