Late night shooting rocks El Patron's fun vibe 32-year-old shooter was released from state prison in August

Karl Etters | Democrat staff writer

El Patron was packed Tuesday night, stuffed tight with college students celebrating the last week of the fall semester. Patrons crowded the bar, while a DJ played in the background.

Just before 1 a.m. Wednesday, the party atmosphere was interrupted when Dimitrie L. Penny, a 32-year-old who had been released from prison this summer, opened fire, Few people saw what was happening as they started to scramble, taking cover under tables and fleeing the Apalachee Parkway Mexican restaurant.

Penny started shooting inside the restaurant during a fight involving several people, said Tallahassee Police Department Chief Michael DeLeo in a briefing with reporters Wednesday.

Twenty-four-year-old Ira Brown was shot inside before the fight spilled out into the parking lot, where, police say,a 24-year-old woman and 25-year-old man were seriously shot and injured.

TPD officer Jason Ravenel shot at Penny, who was given first aid at the scene but died later at the hospital.

Ravenel and Officer Ed Guerra, who was also involved in the incident, were working at the restaurant providing off-duty security, DeLeo said. Both have been placed on administrative leave pending an internal investigation, as is TPD protocol.

TPD’s Violent Crimes and Forensic Units are conducting the investigation.

Details about what started the altercation are sparse, but DeLeo said several people were involved.

He said El Patron was extremely busy Tuesday night and there were several hundred people inside when the shooting broke out. DeLeo could not yet say if Penny fired at officers or whether both engaged him as he left the restaurant.

There is no security footage from inside the restaurant, but TPD detectives are seeking any outside footage that may assist in their investigation.

The restaurant, co-owned by Alberto Munoz of Marianna, is normally a quiet place to grab tacos and a drink, but after dark, El Patron transforms into a jam-packed bar with cheap drink specials and music - sometimes live band and a DJ. The restaurant is popular with state workers for lunch, and in the evening the crowd gets younger.

Munoz said a few nights a week or during big weeks like homecoming or graduation in Tallahassee the restaurant would open to a more club-like crowd.

After Wednesday morning's shootings, he said he would be stopping the after-dinner party atmosphere and go back to operating El Patron solely as a restaurant.

He expressed condolences for the victims and said the shooting is not characteristic of the normal fun vibe where fights were rare. He was shocked to get a call about what happened.

"It triggers these kind of problems. We don’t need this kind of stuff," he said. "This is just one of those things. We were prepared (with security and hired police officers.) Everybody that needed to be here was here."

He said the capacity for the restaurant is 174 people, but was unsure how many people were inside Tuesday. He said security officials often stop allowing people to come inside once capacity is reached.

According to TPD records, officers were dispatched to El Patron 29 times since January 1 for a variety of reasons including for traffic incidents.

Tuesday nights are popular among college students. For many of them, going there to socialize is a weekly ritual. Wednesday morning's shooting brings Tallahassee's violent crime-related homicide count for 2015 to 14.

DeLeo made a plea to anyone who may have information about the shooting, saying it is impossible that everyone who was there had been interviewed.

"As you can imagine there are many details that we still do not know about what actually occurred and why it happened," DeLeo said. "The victims, their family and friends and the community deserve to have all of their questions answered. We must demonstrate that violence is not a solution."

A hotline to take tips specific to the shooting has been set up. Anyone with information is asked to call (850) 891-4331.

Penny was released from state prison in August.

He was sentenced to five years in prison in July 2014 on a violation of probation charge after being convicted of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon and possession of a concealed weapon in 2008, which he served three years for, a Department of Corrections spokesman said.

On Wednesday night, the restaurant opened, less than 18 hours after the shooting, with a few small groups of people quietly dining inside the brightly painted eatery.

While those evening diners declined to talk to reporters, patrons who were at the restaurant in the early morning hours described a chaotic scene.

TJ Chapman normally travels for work but has Tallahassee ties. He decided to go to El Patron Tuesday night. Just before the gunfire started, Chapman stepped outside to smoke with a friend. He heard a few pops, followed by what he believed was police firing back at the suspect, before he, like many others, started to flee the restaurant.

"Being in there last night was crazy. It was super crowded. You couldn’t even move," said Chapman, who attended Florida A&M University in the early 90s but now is a manager for rap artist B.o.B.

"People in there, they’ve never seen people being shot directly in front of them with bodies lying on the ground in the place. It was just crazy."

Chapman got into his car and left, not wanting to get caught up in the chaos with rest of the patrons leaving the restaurant. As he looked through social media posts Wednesday morning, he felt lucky to have stepped outside when he did but also noted the painful messages he was seeing from others who were at the restaurant.

“It messed up a lot of people being in there and witnessing people being shot and killed,” he said. “I think last night really scarred a lot of people.”

Contact Karl Etters at ketters@tallahassee.com or @KarlEtters on Twitter.

The following Instagram video was posted by @ibeatsceo. Warning: contains foul language.