Chicagoans scrambled to safety during Jacksonville, Florida, shooting
Marquis Williams remembers making it to the door when he turned around and couldn’t find his girlfriend.
The 28-year-old began screaming her name as gunshots rang out from the gaming bar they were just inside in Jacksonville, Florida, his worst fears unfolding, when he finally saw her — planted on the floor outside the exit.
“Bae, I can’t walk or run,” his girlfriend, Taylor Poindexter, 26, had said. “My ankle doesn’t work.”
Fortunately, Williams was able to get to her in time and carry her to safety — an act of heroism he said was “an automatic reflex.”
The couple, who grew up in the South Side of Chicago, returned home safely Monday morning, a day after another contestant in a professional “Madden NFL 19” video game tournament opened fire inside a gaming bar with a pizzeria, killing two people and wounding 10 others before dying from a self-inflicted gunshot wound.
Neither Williams nor Poindexter expected anything more than a fun weekend when the two avid video gamers signed up for the tournament. Williams is a paraprofessional for kids with autism, and Poindexter is a dietitian.
The two said that as Chicago natives who survived a mass shooting, politicians should be cautious to dangle Chicago’s gun violence in response to this week’s renewed calls for gun control.
“I just think it’s amazing — being born and raised in Chicago and throughout our lifetime hearing about the crime going on, but we never were placed in a situation where we had to run out of an establishment to save our lives,” Poindexter said. “It takes us going to a gaming tournament in a totally different state away from home.”
The couple had been buying pizza at the bar’s restaurant when they heard what sounded like a balloon bursting, Williams said. But after remembering there were no balloons nearby and seeing a gunman about 30 feet away, the two scrambled to an exit.
They were both trampled, Williams said. After ensuring he and Poindexter made it out, they eventually took refuge inside a bathroom with about 10 others, including a small child.
“My first thought was, ‘Where’s Marquis, is he OK? Is he out?’” Poindexter said. “And when I saw him, it was like a big sigh of relief.”
Poindexter was admitted to a hospital briefly with a sprained ankle, and Williams suffered minor scratches to his legs, they said.
“It could have easily been us,” Williams said. “How long is it going to take and how many lives have to be lost for legislation to take hold for some type of gun control?”
Authorities said the gunman, David Katz, 24, of Baltimore, fatally shot himself after opening fire. Katz was among about 130 gamers attending the competition.
Court records in Maryland reviewed by The Associated Press show Katz had previously been hospitalized for mental illness.
Katz carried two handguns, including one equipped with a laser sight, into the tournament venue but only fired one of them, Jacksonville Sheriff Mike Williams said Monday. “The suspect clearly targeted other gamers who were in the back room” of the pizzeria, Williams said.
The sheriff ’s office identified the dead as 22-year-old Elijah Clayton of Woodland Hills, California, and 28-year-old Taylor Robertson of Giles, West Virginia.
Though Williams and Poindexter are still processing Sunday’s incident, they won’t let the tragedy ruin their love for gaming. As long as there’s tight security next time, they’re open to returning to another video game tournament, they said.