Fort Myers Shooting Motive: Florida Nightclub Attack 'Definitely Not Terrorism,' Police Say

UPDATE: 10:15 a.m. EDT — The two victims killed in the Fort Myers shooting were identified by the Fort Myers Police Department as Shawn Achilles, 14, and Ste’fan Strawder, 18. The investigation is continuing, police said, and while the motive remains a mystery, the department "would like to confirm that this incident is not an act of terror."

Original story: Teenagers seemed to be the target in an early-morning mass shooting Monday in Fort Myers, Florida, but police are still trying to uncover the motive. Two people died and as many as 16 people were injured when a suspect, or suspects, opened fire in the parking lot of the Club Blu nightclub just after midnight in the southwest Florida city, according to the News Press. The venue had been hosting an all-ages "Swimsuit Glow Party."

"At this time the scene is still very active as investigators and crime scene personnel attempt to determine what had occurred," the Fort Myers Police Department wrote in a news release, adding it was "attempting to determine a motive for this incident."

But officers may have already ruled out at least one possible reason for the attack. At about 7:30 a.m. EDT, Fox News anchor Heather Nauert reported that law enforcement sources had told her the shooting was "definitely not terrorism."

Three people were being questioned Monday in connection with the shooting, which sent 18 victims between the ages of 14 and 27 to local hospitals, according to the News-Press. There wasn't much other information about the suspect(s) — and possible motive — available Monday morning.

However, in a statement, Club Blu seemed to imply the shooter(s) were older than the attendees they wounded. "As the club was closing and parents were picking their children up, that's when all this took place," it wrote on Facebook. "It was not kids at the party that did this despicable act."

Comparisons to the June 12 mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, were inevitable, in part because the two cities are less than 200 miles away from each other. The motive behind the attack on Pulse, a venue for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender clubgoers, remained unclear even a month after the incident.

That shooting's gunman, Omar Mateen, was killed in a shootout with police, but not before he declared loyalty to the Islamic State group in a 911 call. A Florida Department of Law Enforcement official recently told the Orlando Sentinel investigators hadn't found any other motive despite rumors that Mateen had hated LGBT people or himself had been gay.