California bar homicides evokes memories of mass shooting in Fort Myers

It was a teen event at Club Blu two years ago in July. A shooter killed Stefan Strawder, 18, and Sean Archilles, 14, while injuring 18 other people.

“Somebody should know something,” Becky Brotton said, who lives in Fort Myers. “I mean they have to. Somebody had to of seen them.”

Yet, more than two years later, no arrests have been made. Now, news of another mass shooting in a California bar on a themed, “College Night.”

“It’s horrible,” Brotton said. “I think it’s escalating. I mean it’s just, there just cropping them all over the place.”

“When I turn on the television my heart dropped for California and I was devastated that this had to happen again,” Angela McClary said, a member of Parents of Murdered Children. “And it’s continually happening again.”

Whether it’s the shooting in Thousand Oaks, California, or right here in Fort Myers, McClary with Parents of Murdered Children said these killing all cause the same pain.

“Every time someone is murdered it brings me back, right back to that day and it’s hearts breaking especially for a parent,” McClary said. “I don’t know what those parents are feeling but I know what I felt when my child was murdered.”

As our community still reels from that night at Club Blu, McClary has become more spiritual.

“I always each morning pray for our city and that’s the killings will stop,” McClary said. “Also that the victims would get justice for the murders that have taken place.”

Many hope the violence will finally stop.

“My heart goes out to all of them,” Brotton said.

“It’s so unfortunate that our young ones are the ones that are being slaughtered down like animals,” McClary said.