One dead in Fort Myers shooting near Imaginarium
About an hour after a 34-year-old Fort Myers man was shot and killed on a city street on Monday city police found a black pickup truck that may have been involved in the fatal shooting abandoned at a apartment complex.
Police said they were called to the 2600 block of Blake Street off Cranford Avenue, about a block from the Imaginarium Science Center, in reference to gunshots being heard at 10:20 a.m. At that site officers found a man in a silver four-door Nissan who had been fatally wounded.
Capt. Jim Mulligan, Fort Myers police public information officer, said that a black Dodge pickup truck was also involved in the incident.
While police said that they did not know how many occupants were in the pickup truck at the time of the incident it was seen fleeing southbound on Cranford shortly after the shooting.
The truck, which Mulligan said had crashed into the silver car before the shooting, was found about an hour later at Westchase apartments on Metro Parkway, abandoned.
Mulligan said the victim died at the scene from gunshot wounds and added that the victim's name would be withheld pending notification of next of kin.
He also said that there was possibly a person in the bed of the truck who may have been the shooter and urged anyone with information about the truck to call the Fort Myers police or Crime Stoppers.
However, family members say the victim is Victor Lemar Johnson, 34, of Fort Myers. Johnson had a lengthy record dating back to 1999 and spent several years in a Florida prison for a 2000 homicide.
Sharon Minor, who said she was Johnson's aunt, said Johnson was on Blake Street to pick up his daughter. "I'm glad she wasn't in the car," she said.
Minor said people have to start speaking out about murders.
"I'm not scared. It's ridiculous."
She said all she knew of Johnson was that he was a good person who didn't act up around her.
"If you needed it, he'd give it to you. Everybody said he was a bad person but I didn't see that side of him," she said. "Maybe because was older and he respected me. But he was a good person."
Brittany Rowles, who started wailing and nearly collapsed when she came to the scene and officers talked with her, said Johnson was the father of her 11-year-old son Caleb.
"This isn't cool, dying and lying on the street," she said. "There's nothing cool about this. This is stupid. Father's Day is three weeks away and here we are."
Rowles said she had no idea what she would tell her son about his father's death or who shot him.
"Some idiot, that's the best idea I can give you," she said about a possible culprit.
She said people shouldn't be just sitting around waiting for more murders or shootings but should do something about them.
"If folks don't figure this out its gonna be they son dead under the blue tent," Rowles said, standing about a block from a blue, police department canopy where the homicide investigation was taking place. "And it's going to keep going and keep going until each feels this pain that I'm feeling."
RECENT SHOOTINGS IN LEE COUNTY:
May 23: Suspect shot by police in Cape Coral
May 17: Truck driver injured in Lehigh shooting
May 11: 40-year-old killed in Harlem Heights, family grieves
May 10: Cape Coral road rage shooting injures one
May 8: Two shot along Edison Avenue over online insults
May 12: 40-year-old killed in Harlem Heights
May 15: Man found dead at shopping plaza
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