Three family members were wounded in the mass shooting at a Doral bar. One is in ICU

The shockwaves from a mass shooting at a popular West Miami-Dade bar last weekend are still reverberating as families, city officials and police grapple with the aftermath.

A father and husband remains intubated in the ICU after getting shot four times while protecting his wife. A responding officer shot in the thigh is continuing recovery. Several families are visiting loved ones hospitalized after gunfire erupted at CityPlace Doral, one of the areas busiest shopping centers.

The early-morning Saturday shooting left a security guard and the suspected gunman dead — and spawned a frantic stampede of frightened patrons, six of whom were shot.

The tragedy moved Doral’s elected leaders to hold a workshop Wednesday on possibly amending city ordinances related to closing hours for alcohol-selling businesses.

“It is imperative that we convene to thoroughly evaluate and potentially amend our current code and policies... particularly in relation to nightclubs and entertainment venues,” Doral Mayor Christi Fraga told the Miami Herald.

READ MORE: Could Doral bars shut down earlier in wake of mass shooting? City Council will discuss

Shortly after 3:30 a.m. Saturday at the Martini Bar Doral, George Alejandro Castellanos, a 23-year-old security guard, son, brother and father, went to deescalate an altercation involving two men when, police say, he was shot and killed by one of them, Jamal Wood. Two nearby off-duty Doral officers then confronted and engaged in a gunfight with Wood outside the bar, where they fatally shot him.

Amid the initial altercation and subsequent shootout, one of the six bystanders who was struck remains in critical condition.

Carlos Milan, a 38-year-old from Kendall, has been in HCA Florida Kendall Regional Hospital’s ICU since Saturday. His wife, 30-year-old Yaniris Jerez, and her brother, 34-year-old Miguel Jerez, were also wounded in the shooting.

A GoFundMe page set up by Arianna Aguilar and posted twice by Yaniris Jerez on her Facebook page said, “My best friend Yaniris was hit once and, after surgery, she will be able to walk again. The recovery might take time but she, as the doctor said, ‘is very lucky.’”

The page said Miguel Jerez got shot once in the stomach, but “after immediate surgery his prognosis is looking promising.”

“Carlitos,” the post added, “was hit four times in total. For you to have an idea of how brave he is, after he was shot, he walked toward Yaniris and remained conscious the entire time.”

Who shot 6 bystanders?

Apart from Milan and the Jerez siblings, Lester Gonzalez, Sonia Torres and Martini Bar part-owner Gerald Delaney also got shot. The question: Was it Wood or the Doral cops who hospitalized the six bystanders?

The officers who fired their guns are Ricardo Acevedo and Andrew Romo, according to law enforcement sources.

READ MORE: Who fired the bullets that hit 6 bystanders at a Doral bar?

Doral Police Chief Edwin Lopez said the officers had not given statements as of Tuesday evening. They can be compelled to give statements, but they can’t be used against them in any way.

Lopez said investigators still don’t know whether anyone other than the security guard was wounded by the time police arrived, which would have been more concerning to the officers on the scene, but it can’t be ruled out.

“Multiple shots rang out before the officers got there,” Lopez said. “The possibility of others wounded, before the officers got there, exists.”

The difficulty in assessing this shooting centers on the lack of information released thus far.

Steadman Stahl, president of the South Florida Police Benevolent Association, the union that represents the officers, said he could picture a scenario in which they arrive to see the security guard shot dead and others wounded.

“Now, four days after the event it was absolutely not an active shooter,” Stahl said. “But 20 seconds into it, it’s an active shooter.”

When they spotted Wood with a gun, he said, they’re trained to react immediately.

“You smell it,” he added. “You’re hearing the screaming, and you see people going in all directions. All the training in the world teaches you to neutralize the subject — and it all happens in seconds.”

Martini Bar offers trauma counseling

State records show Martini Bar’s license is held by MB Doral LLC, a company registered with the state in 2015 by current officers Delaney, Louis Terminello and Barry Kates. None of the three responded to emails, phone messages or in-person requests for comment from the Herald.

A source told the Herald that the bar offered counseling services to its employees after the shooting.

On Tuesday, about a dozen men and women — some holding files — went in and out of the bar, a Thursday-to-Sunday establishment that closes at 3 a.m. after Thursday and Sunday openings and 4 a.m. after Friday and Saturday openings. It’s unclear whether it will reopen later this week.

On Tuesday, some employees talked and hugged. Two rolled a valet parking stand into the restaurant.

From the outside on Tuesday afternoon, there were no discernible signs that a mass shooting had taken place 80 hours earlier. The only visible indicators were gaping holes in several brown wicker lounge chairs and sectionals on the patio.

About two dozen stools were upside down on top of the bar, seat cushions were stacked in a corner and one of two TVs was on. Near one of them, a neon sign read, “Hoy se bebe,” which roughly translates to “Today we drink.”

Saturday’s shooting is not the first at CityPlace since the restaurant and residential area opened in 2017.

In January 2022, a fight that spilled from a restaurant and involved bottle-throwing and hair-pulling ended with a man firing a gun inside a mall parking garage.

The man was arrested, but the charges against him were dropped months later after his attorney argued he was justified in using his gun under Florida’s Stand Your Ground law.

Another mall security guard told the Herald on Tuesday, more than two years after the shooting, “You can still see the bullet marks.”