Two people died and seven were injured Saturday morning in a shooting at a bar in a suburb of Miami after an argument between customers that led one of them to pull out a gun and start shooting.
Police reported that the fight occurred at the Martini Bar, in the CityPlace Doral shopping center, in Doral (state of Florida) around 3:30 in the morning on Saturday. When a security guard intervened, one of the individuals involved in the argument he took out a gun and killed him said Alvaro Zabaleta, Miami-Dade police detective.
Two Doral police officers who were also providing security at the scene began an exchange of gunfire with the assailant, and one of them ended up fatally wounding him.
One of the officers, with four years on the force, was shot in the leg and he applied a tourniquet himself, Doral Police Chief Edwin Lopez told reporters. “Even after unloading his weapon, the extensive training that our police officers undergo is the reason that agent is still alive today,” Lopez stressed.
Six other people were wounded by gunshots – five men and one woman – according to authorities.
The injured police officer has already been released from the hospital, WTVJ-TV reported. The six injured people remain hospitalized, two of them in critical condition, Zabaleta said.
The shopping center has multiple uses, and in addition to having numerous luxury stores, it also has departments on some of them that function as private homes. A neighbor of one of them told WPLG-TV that he heard a volley of bullets.
“About 3:15 or 3:30 in the morning I initially heard three shots,” said William Suedois. “I didn’t really know where they came from. I thought they were fireworks. Then I heard another 10 or 15, very loud, very fast. It was very, very scary,” he added, still shocked by the unusual early morning.
Lopez noted that the Florida Department of Law is already investigating the incident, and that Miami-Dade police are investigating the two deaths. The attacker and the security guard who died have not been identified, and investigators said they still do not know what sparked the fight inside the bar.
Mall managers said in a statement that they had put additional security measures in place, while the bar owners said they were already cooperating with authorities and conducting their own investigation.
“We will feel this trauma deeply for a long time and we are here for our community now and always,” says the statement that the owners of the Martini published on their Instagram account.