Documents detail what led to Club Lit shooting

A night of fun at a downtown Orlando club ended in a seemingly unprovoked shooting that left a well-liked 22-year-old man dead, according to more than 500 pages of police reports and a dozen recorded interviews.

Keveon Smith was shot to death after leaving Club Lit on Orange Avenue on Jan. 26. Two other victims were shot but survived. Police have arrested two of the three suspected shooters: Notier Gomez, 26, of Clearwater, and Jahlil Cobb, 23, of St. Petersburg.

Despite the arrests, little information about what led to Smith’s killing had been made public, because records in the case were previously sealed.

The documents released by the Orange-Osceola State Attorney’s Office this week in response to a

public records request confirm that the third shooter, who sucker punched Smith and fired the first shots at him while running away, has been identified by police, but not yet arrested.

Smith and a friend arrived at the club around 12:30 a.m. and went to a VIP section with friends. The suspects, who drove from Clearwater to Orlando that night, were in the VIP section next to Smith and his friends, the records say.

Multiple people interviewed by detectives said there were no confrontations between the two groups, although a bartender said one person who was with the suspects complained that someone in Smith’s group was encroaching on their space, the records say.

Another witness said that dispute happened before Smith got to the club.

Smith and his friend left the club shortly after 2 a.m. and were carousing outside when a group of people, including the suspects, confronted them. The friend told detectives Smith said “we good.”

Video previously released by Orlando police showed a suspect punching Smith in the head and firing two shots toward him as he ran away.

Cobb pulled out a gun and fired five shots and Gomez fired one, detectives say.

Smith was hit in the torso and staggered to the Bank of America building parking lot where onlookers called 911. He was taken to Orlando Regional Medical Center, where he was pronounced dead.

Orlando police detectives in March received a tip from the Orange County Sheriff’s Office with a link to an Instagram account with a photo of the three suspects. The phone number liked to the account was Gomez’s, the records say. The phone’s location history also showed it going from Clearwater to Orlando the night of the shooting, according to the records.

Gomez was arrested in April by U.S. Marshals in Tennessee. He admitted to detectives he was at the club but said he fired “up into the air” because he was scared.

“Gomez was asked about any prior encounters with the victim and he insisted he had never seen the victim before the shooting and could not explain why it happened,” wrote Orlando police Detective Peter Cadiz.

Gomez said he later ditched the gun.

Cobbs was arrested in June by Marshals in Brooklyn, N.Y. He admitting to shooting toward Smith, but said he didn’t hit him. While he identified Gomez, he declined to name the first shooter.

“This is supposed to be about me,” he told detectives.