CORAL GABLES – A man accused of opening fire inside an upscale Florida gym was a fitness instructor who had been fired on the day of the attack in which two people died, including the suspect, and a third was wounded, police said on Sunday.
Abeku Wilson, 33, was dismissed on Saturday from his job at Equinox Fitness, a chain of high-end gyms, in a mall in Coral Gables, outside Miami, for “workplace violence” and escorted off the property, Miami Dade police said.
Wilson returned just before 1 p.m. with a handgun and fired multiple rounds at the gym’s general manager Janine Ackerman, 35, and fitness manager Marios Hortis, 42.
Wilson was pronounced dead by police inside the gym with a self-inflicted gunshot wound, police said.
Ackerman died after being air-lifted to the Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami. Hortis was in stable condition on Sunday after undergoing surgery.
“There is nothing I can say to lessen the searing pain we all feel at this terrible moment,” Equinox Chief Executive Harvey Spevak said in a Facebook post on Sunday. “Yesterday’s tragedy at our Coral Gables location has impacted everyone in the Equinox family.”
Both Ackerman and Hortis were targeted in the shooting, police said.
“This was not an act of random violence,” they added, but did not say more about what motivated the attack.
An investigation is ongoing, police said. (Reuters)