Waffle House fight ends in fatal shooting, crash

An argument at a Waffle House led to a man being shot and killed early Monday morning.

Dakota Fields, 24, of Fort Myers, died about six miles down the road from the restaurant after the SUV he and four friends left in struck a car at the foot of the Edison Bridge.

The Lee County Sheriff's Office has released few details but said the argument began around 2:30 a.m. Nobody has been arrested in the shooting.

The crash caused traffic backups during the morning rush for more than an hour in several directions as commuters made their way to downtown Fort Myers.

A witness at the scene of the accident who performed CPR, said Fields had two bullet wounds, one in his chest and one in the arm.

At around 3 a.m., Richard House, who lives at the corner of First and Park streets, at the base of the Edison Bridge, said his wife told him she heard what sounded like a crash.

House said he walked out and saw several people walking around frantically calling out "Call 911, our friend's been shot!"

House said he was told the man needed a blanket so he grabbed one and went to help.

House, a deejay at Mona Lisa's, said the man's friends, three males and a woman, told him that their friend had been in an altercation at the Waffle House.

"He was still in the back seat of the vehicle," House said, adding that Fields was shot in the chest near the heart with no exit wound and in the arm between the elbow and the shoulder.

House said the torso wound was large. "I could see inside his chest."

He said Fields, with a round face and a ribbon beard, had stopped breathing.

House said he checked Fields' pulse and he wasn't breathing.

House said he and a woman on the phone with 911 managed to get his heart beating and they found a weak pulse.

"Nobody else was getting out of cars to help," he said. "People were speeding by, yelling at us."

House said he repeated a silent prayer for Fields as the police and ambulance arrived.

As he went back to his apartment with blood on his hands and shorts, House said he saw the ambulance pull away, without lights and sirens, and assumed the man had died.

"It was a very confusing situation," he said.

Fields, turned 24 on Christmas Day. He showed off his abs and tattoos in his Facebook picture posted two days before Christmas.

Friends of Fields mourned his death online Monday. 19-year-old Gabby Hile, of Nevada, said Fields lived in the Las Vegas area for some time and his friends there are "deeply upset" at the news. "He was such a kind-hearted person," she said via Twitter message.

On Jan. 2, 2013 Fields was arrested for disorderly intoxication causing a disturbance and resisting an officer and obstructing without violence. He pleaded no contest to both counts and was fined.

Staff writer Jason Cook contributed to this report.Connect with this reporter: MichaelBraunNP (Facebook) @MichaelBraunNP (Twitter)