Mourning continues, clues trickle in 1 week after shooting

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FORT MYERS, Fla. — A few clues emerged as victims continued to mourn Monday, one week after the Club Blu mass shooting that killed two and wounded 18 others.

Southwest Florida Crime Stoppers told WINK News they received two tips over the weekend, bringing the total since the shooting to 14. Tajze Battle, 22, one of three persons of interest taken into custody the day after the shooting, entered a not guilty plea to resisting arrest, records show. The other two men denied any knowledge of the shooting, according to a police report.

Derrick Church, 19, admitted to being involved in a high-speed chase after the shooting, the report said. Demetrius O’Neal, also 19, said he was asleep in the car during the high-speed chase but awoke as the car came to a stop.

O’Neal said Battle, whom he knows, and Church, whom he doesn’t, picked him up somewhere near the Edison Mall, according to the documents. Church said he was on Winkler Avenue when Battle and O’Neal flagged him down, got in his car, and told him to drive.

Church said he doesn’t know either Battle or O’Neal, and that they didn’t threaten him. They simply asked him to drive, and he complied.

A fourth person, 33-year-old Jazmin Barron, was arrested on gun-related charges connected to the shooting. She and the three men are all free on bond.

Meanwhile, tributes continue at the site of the shooting, where the family of 14-year-old Sean Archilles, the youngest of the two teens who died, released 14 balloons in his honor.

“I never expected to put RIP on a shirt with my little brother on it,” said Archilles’ brother, D’Sean Archilles. “It’s tough, but I’ve got to suck it up.”

He told WINK News he’s trying to be strong for his brother, believing that’s what he would have wanted.

“I am not going to cry because he wouldn’t want me to cry,” he said. “If I feel like I’ve got to cry, I go to my room and close myself in there and cry. I don’t show it in front of people.”

Nadege Pierre, Archilles’ aunt, said losing her nephew has been an emotional rollercoaster. She recalled when she first heard about the shooting and rushed to the club.

“I got here, and they said he was at the hospital,” Pierre said. “And my sister told me he died. I said no, he’s at the hospital. They just told me the hospital. I really had hope he was alive.”

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