A look at security after suicide at Cape Coral Hospital

Thursday, a man walked into the emergency room at Cape Coral Hospital with a gun before committing suicide, so we looked into the security that is used there.

Lee Health would not share a response with us about the security inside the emergency room, and Cape Coral Police Department said it didn’t know what might be in place.

We visited the hospital Friday to observe security measures there, where we saw a security vehicle and an individual behind a glass partition, but we were able to walk right into the ER.

When Cape Coral police were called to the hospital, there was a man with a gun locked inside a bathroom.

“We were aware that he was threatening to commit suicide,” Master Cpl. Phil Mullen said.

Mullen said his first officers racing to the emergency room knew this would be a complicated scene. They had to protect all life and try to save one at the same time.

“It includes everyone in the area ad includes our officers,” Mullen said. “Every human life in that area, we’re going to try to preserve. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the case here, where he was successful in taking his own life, tragically, but that’s our goal at any scene.”

Why the man decided to die by suicide is not confirmed, but we were able to ask CCPD about how someone with a gun could walk into an emergency room without any checkpoints.

“My general understanding of the hospital is, yes, they have security,” Mullen said. “I have no idea if they’re armed or what. That’s a question for the hospital. I don’t know.”

Cape Coral Hospital would not answer those questions. Instead, Lee Health told us all of its hospitals have security, but the plans are confidential.

When walked into the hospital, a woman at the front desk asked us who we were and why we were there before we chatted with her briefly and then left.