Second victim dies in Florida fitness center shooting

[April 10, 2017]  (Reuters) - A second victim has died after a disgruntled fitness instructor opened fire on his former coworkers inside an upscale gym outside Miami before shooting himself, police said on Sunday.

Fitness manager Marios Hortis, 42, died while being treated for injuries he sustained in the Saturday shooting at Equinox Fitness in Coral Gables, Miami-Dade County police said in a statement. The gym's general manager, Janine Ackerman, 35, was also killed.

The accused assailant, 33-year-old Abeku Wilson, was pronounced dead inside the gym, police said.

The attack happened after Wilson was dismissed on Saturday from his job at the fitness center for "workplace violence" and escorted off the property, police said.

Wilson returned with a handgun just before 1 p.m. (1700 GMT) and fired multiple rounds at Ackerman and Hortis.

The victims were airlifted to the Jackson Memorial Hospital in Miami. Hortis underwent surgery before he died, police said.

"There is nothing I can say to lessen the searing pain we all feel at this terrible moment," Harvey Spevak, chief executive officer of the Equinox gym chain, said in a Facebook post on Sunday.

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.

(Reporting by Laila Kearney; Editing by James Dalgleish and Lisa Von Ahn)

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