Club Blu in Fort Myers, Florida "I saw everybody running," said Mr Wilson, 32, adding, "a bunch of people were screaming names." Authorities identified the two victims killed as Sean Archilles, 14, and Stef'An Strawder, 18. A family friend said Monday that Strawder, who went by the nickname Dee, was an incoming senior and star basketball player at Lehigh Senior High School. "He was like a son to me," said the friend, Blanca Figueroa, 40. "He was a great kid, always was playing. He never would get tired." Kris Reaves described Strawder as his "best friend" and "brother".

Evidence markers are placed on the street at the scene of the deadly shooting outside of the Club Blu. Credit:AP "Besides basketball you was always there looking out for me when I need it," he wrote on Facebook. "To hear the news at 6 in the morning it hurts to see a brother that I once had go in a blink of an eye and a brother that have talent that can make it big one day... Rest easy homie you is gone but never forgotten R.I.P. my best friend/my brother stefan". Two teenage boys were killed in the shooting on Sunday night. Credit:AP

The police gave no immediate indication on a possible motive, but said it "is not an act of terror." Residents of the neighbourhood around the club said the area was stalked by drug dealing and violence. "Investigators are working very hard to determine a motive," police said. "The Fort Myers Police Department would like to confirm that this incident is not an act of terror (as it has been referred) or terrorism." In a Facebook post the morning after the shooting, Club Blu said gunfire broke out at closing time when parents were arriving to pick their children up. The club confirmed that the event was geared towards 12 to 17 year-olds, stressing that there was "armed security as well as full security, inside and out".

"We are deeply sorry for all involved," the Club posted to Facebook. "We tried to give the teens what we thought was a safe place to have a good time". "As the club was closing and parents picking their children up... that's when all this took place". It added, "it was not kids at the party that did this despicable act." Victims, aged 12 to 27, began arriving at Lee Memorial Hospital around 1:30am, according to Cheryl Garn, a hospital spokeswoman.

"Sixteen people were treated in the trauma centre and emergency department," she said in a statement. "One victim expired at the hospital." Shots were also fired at a nearby home on Parkway Street, where one person was reportedly injured. Vehicles at another location were also shot at. Three people have been arrested, but the identity of the shooter or shooters has not been established. Police said officers were "actively canvassing the area looking for other persons who may be involved in this incident". Syreeta Gary told Fox 4 News that her daughter's friend was shot in the leg when the girls tried to flee the popular nightclub as the shooting broke out.

"Well I just thank God that my daughter is OK because she could have been shot," Ms Gary said. "Her dodging bullets and running and dropping between cars...It is ridiculous that kids have to go through this," she said. "She was running away from bullets so she wouldn't get shot. They were running for safety. She got hit in the leg and luckily it was just her leg, I think it's sad they have to run for cover". Timothy Settles, widely reported as one of the victims of the shooting, used Facebook Live to show himself in hospital. Posting to Facebook that "he didn't want to die".

Wink News is garnering eyewitness accounts of the shooting via Facebook posts. In one post, a man says his close friend was at the club at the time of the shooting. "I called and couldn't get a hold of them, I rushed to Blu scared when I arrived I got one of them and he said that the shooter took of and the cops where chasing him," the man wrote. He said he was struck by the large number of people desperately calling out the names of their loved ones outside the club.

"It was a mad house people were running everywhere," he wrote. "All people were saying was their friends' names to see if they're okay - a lot of phone calls to parents. But it was one of the scariest sights to just see people come pouring out like that." Footage has emerged on social media allegedly portraying vehicles that were shot at in relation to the parking lot shooting. The shooting comes the month after a massacre at a nightclub in the Florida city of Orlando, in which a lone gunman killed 49 people in the deadliest mass shooting in US history.

with New York Times