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An early-morning shooting at popular Washington Avenue nightclub Mansion has left one man dead and police on a manhunt for the suspect. The shooting happened around 3:30 a.m., prompting a panicked crowd to rush out of the packed club as one partier lay dying on the floor.
“All we know is that a fight broke out in the VIP section,” Miami Beach Police Department spokesman Sgt. Bobby Hernandez tells Riptide. “And when the dust settled we found the victim with a gunshot wound to the upper chest.”
Update: The victim was reportedly Antaun Teasley, the personal chef of Miami Heat player Norris Cole. MBPD declined to confirm the news, but Miami Herald reporter Joseph Goodman says Teasley was the man shot.
See also: Remembering Young Chef Antaun Teasley, Killed at Mansion Shooting
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The victim, whose name has not been released, was a man in his early 40s. After the shooting, he was transported to Ryder Trauma Center, where he died a few hours later.
Other clubgoers described a scene of panic after the shooting.
“There was like a bang noise, like a gun, and then I looked over, right in the VIP area, everybody started getting down and started running, and I was like there’s no way on earth that this is like gunshots,” witness Nefreteri Tomalo told NBC 6. “Everybody just dropped down and started running like there was like a stampede.”
As the sun rose over Miami Beach, the VIP entrance to the club remained cordoned off with yellow police tape, and authorities were still searching for the shooter.
“We haven’t got an identity,” Hernandez says. “We’re still interviewing several witnesses. Hopefully somebody will give us information that will let us know who he is.”
Update: Goodman, the Herald‘s Heat reporter, has been tweeting updates about Teasley’s reported death.
Teasley’s own Instagram feed has been flooded with condolences.
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