Fort Myers shooting: Questions mount as police stay silent on suspect

A man shot in downtown Fort Myers remains in the hospital Tuesday night while his shooter is on the loose.

Adam Rudlaf has two bullets lodged near his heart; there’s nothing doctors can do about it. Meanwhile, police are still quiet about the shooting.

Nobody from the Fort Myers Police Department will talk, and the department will not release surveillance video, or even an image of the shooter, despite past history of doing so.

Meanwhile, the mayor reminded WINK News, US News, and World Report ranked Fort Myers as the third safest city in the nation.

Even in a historic district like downtown Fort Myers things can become dangerous and scary in a split second. That’s what Mayor Kevin Anderson believes happened Saturday night.

“It was bikers, bikers who were fighting each other. Now, one of the things we did do is we canceled bike night downtown. We no longer hold the bike nights,” Mayor Anderson said.

But the bikers went downtown anyway, and an innocent man, casually walking home from work at Cabos Cantina, was shot at least twice.

“And, you know, a majority of bikers are professionals,” Mayor Anderson said. “But like any group, you have that handful that don’t conduct themselves properly.”

Mayor Anderson said they were all legally carrying a firearm. But Rudlaff and Nicole Womack, his fiance, do not care about that.

“I know when I was sitting there calling out for nine to one, there were some gentlemen that have bikes behind me see him, and I could hear them talking about oh, somebody has my gun or he had my gun,” Rudlaff said.

“He literally was inches from death. I mean, the person that shot him, I don’t care if they say that was self-defense or not. They need to be held responsible because he could have died. And that’s not okay,” Womack said.

“There were close to 20 officers working in downtown Saturday night,” Mayor Andreson said. “But you know, the fight breaks out like that. And people back stupidly that you can’t control that. That’s anywhere.”

During Monday night’s city council meeting, Councilman Johnny Streets brought up the idea of a downtown entertainment ordinance again. When he first talked about the measure last Summer, he called for drones, checkpoints, parking restrictions, and more. The idea came after the shooting on Second Street.