Shooting survivor recalls bedlam
Palm Beach Post (Florida)
August 15, 2007 Wednesday
FINAL EDITION
SHOOTING SURVIVOR RECALLS BEDLAM
BYLINE: By ALEJANDRA CANCINO Palm Beach Post Staff Writer
SECTION: LOCAL; Pg. 1B
LENGTH: 576 words
DATELINE: RIVIERA BEACH
Stevens Dormezil was dancing to an R&B song in a club at 2:45 a.m. Monday when he heard what sounded like firecrackers.
He still didn’t realize what the sound was, but then something stung him, right above his left hip.
Of the three clubgoers who were shot by an unidentified gunman that night, Dormezil is the only one who lived to tell about it.
On Tuesday, he gave this account: People began running out the door, and he joined them. He heard a woman scream and saw another on the floor. She was identified later as Shalena Perry, 18, who died Monday at St. Mary’s Medical Center.
Dormezil ran downstairs, asked for directions to an emergency room and got in his SUV. Someone told him to drive south on Old Dixie Highway.
As he drove away, he saw police cars heading north, toward Palm Beach Finest Club at 1601 Old Dixie Highway. People call it the Caribbean Club or the Upstairs Club.
He flagged down an officer and got out of his car. The officer thought Dormezil was a suspect, and he started to handcuff him. But then he realized the 25-year-old was hurt.
About 10 minutes later, Dormezil was inside an ambulance when he learned that Abdullah Luke, 24, also was shot and died at the club.
Authorities believe Luke was the intended target, said Paul Miller, spokesman for Palm Beach County Sheriff’s Office.
Dormezil remembers seeing Luke dancing a couple of feet away from him. He wasn’t causing any trouble, Dormezil said.
He doesn’t remember seeing Perry at the club, but he saw her later at St. Mary’s in the bed next to him.
She had been shot in the head.
“It was like a movie … crazy,” he said, sitting inside his parents’ house Tuesday in Delray Beach.
The part-time Florida Atlantic University finance student lives in West Palm Beach and works at a car-warranty company.
On Tuesday, he was calm while showing off without hesitation the white gauze covering his wounds.
One bullet grazed his back.
Another went about 3 inches into his left side without damaging any vital organs. The nurse told Dormezil that his body will expel it in a couple of days, he said.
In the meantime, he just has to clean the wound. He was lucky, he said.
“I’m happy to be here. I am grateful,” he said.
Funny things go through the mind when one is shot, he said.
“You feel like you are dead. Then you ask yourself, ‘Am I in heaven?’ And then you realize you are still alive.”
He also thought about the paramedics cutting up his favorite brown shirt to get to his wounds. Then he thought about how he didn’t want to stain his car with blood.
Monday was the third or fourth time Dormezil was in the club, known for its Jamaican music and as a place to hang out on Sunday nights.
Patrons usually are patted by a security guard on their way in, but Dormezil said the security guard didn’t bother to check his left leg or the back of his pants when he arrived at the club early Monday.
After being released from the hospital, Dormezil went back to the club with police officers.
He said he saw two buses full of people police were interviewing.
Miller said that, although more than 30 people were interviewed, police don’t have an accurate description of what happened.
Dormezil said he didn’t see the shooter.
“I didn’t see him. I didn’t want to look back,” he said.
Anyone with information is asked to call the Palm Beach County Violent Crimes Task Force at (561) 688-3888 or Crime Stoppers at (800) 458-8477.
Staff researcher Melanie Mena contributed to this story.