A shooting at a bar in a popular outdoor mall in a Miami suburb early Saturday left two dead and seven injured.
According to local law enforcement, an altercation at a martini bar at the CityPlace Doral complex broke out around 3:30 a.m. Saturday, prompting a security guard working the scene to intervene. A man involved in the altercation subsequently produced a gun and shot and killed the guard.
"You start hearing shots. And it wasn’t one. It was one after another, after another, after another," recalled Peter Andres Jordan, who was in the bar at the time.
Two police officers then shot and killed the alleged gunman, but not before one officer and six bystanders — five men and a woman, according to police — were wounded in the shootout.
Two of the bystanders were listed in critical condition, while the officer was listed as stable after being shot in the leg. That officer, a four-year veteran of the force, applied a tourniquet on himself immediately after being struck, Doral Police Department Chief Edwin Lopez said.
One individual, identified as the man who the gunman was arguing with, was taken into custody.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement is investigating the local police officers' use of force.
"It’s too early to tell who was shot by who, but we’re actively investigating that incident," a law enforcement spokesperson said at a press conference Saturday.
In a statement, a spokesperson for CityPlace Doral called it an "isolated incident," and that it had put a number of additional security measures in place. It said the mall's south parking garage, as well as the onsite retail surrounding the Plaza Fountain areas, are closed. The north side of the development will open at 6pm today, it said.
Officials said Miami-area law enforcement agencies had conducted a mass casualty training exercise at CityPlace Doral one year ago. Opened in 2017, CityPlace is an $800 million, 55-acre mixed-use development featuring some 40 restaurants and retailers, as well as a residential complex.
"You think that it’s never gonna happen to you, in a night where you’re just having fun, right — you’re 2 feet away," Jordan said. "I could be dead right now, you know."
