Shooting involving Lee County deputies: Four Lee County deputies have been placed on administrative leave following a fatal shooting in Bonita Springs early Monday morning.
Albert "Tony" Almeida, 47, of south Fort Myers, a concierge at the Inn at the Springs in Bonita Springs, was shackled and shot by Craig Spitz on May 16. Almeida remains in Lee Memorial Hospital. / John David Emmett/news-press.com
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1:10 A.M. — As Albert "Tony" Almeida lay shackled and handcuffed on the ground after being shot by a fired former co-worker, he feared his next breath would be his last.
"I really thought it was my time," Almeida said Thursday, speaking for the first time since the shooting 12 days ago at the Inn at Bonita Springs.
The event for Almeida, 47, was life-altering, but not life-ending. Now he sits in a wheelchair at Lee Memorial Hospital knowing he may never walk again.
The event was life-ending for the shooter, Craig Spitz, 42, fired from his job as the inn's night auditor about 18 months ago.
Spitz sped from the scene. Lee County sheriff's deputies sought him out and shot him dead four hours later, after they said Spitz got out of his car and pulled out a gun. The four deputies have not been identified and are on administrative leave.
Almeida, the hotel concierge, said Spitz had waited in a darkened office behind the hotel's front desk and ambushed him at about 10:15 p.m. May 16. The small hotel is just off U.S. 41 between Old 41 and Bonita Beach Road.
Spitz handcuffed and shackled Almeida and put a ball gag around his mouth. Then he pushed Almeida against the wall.
"If you don't want to get hurt, don't try to look at me. Don't try to identify me," Spitz told him.
He maneuvered Almeida to the center of the room.
"He was not really telling me what he wanted to do with me," Almeida said.
Spitz asked him when Gregory Metz, the night auditor who replaced Spitz, would arrive. Metz would report at 11 p.m. But Spitz already knew that because he had worked that shift, Almeida said.
"It gave me the impression he didn't really want to harm me," Almeida said. "He wanted to harm somebody else."
With Metz scheduled to arrive in a few minutes, Almeida knew something had to be done.
Spitz stepped behind Almeida and began rummaging through the desk of general manager Kimberlee Bates, who had fired Spitz.
Almeida took a chance and ran, shackles and all, through a door of the office and toward the pool. His gag became loose enough for him to scream, "Call the cops! He's got a gun! Call the cops!"
Spitz gave chase in the pool area.
"Somehow he ended up shooting me," Almeida said.
He was shot twice. One shot entered at his mid-back and came out his right armpit, scattering bone fragments that caused swelling in his spinal cord.
The other bullet entered the left side of Almeida's back through his armpit and lodged in the neck muscle, where it remains.
Money matters
Almeida said his relationship with Spitz was limited to work.
He recalls once getting four tickets to the Naples Zoo for Spitz and some relatives.
"He was very smart. We had good conversations," Almeida said. "While working together we had some minor tits or tats."
For example, Spitz insisted the bank drawer had to have dollar bills in bundles of 25, fastened with paper clips.
When Almeida counted money, he would unclip the bundles and leave the dollars loose. It irritated Spitz, he said.
"He was very neurotic in that sense," Almeida said.
Spitz was the only employee allowed to have a dog accompany him at work, a German shepherd named "Scooby." Why the special treatment?
"When you work in a small hotel, try to find a night auditor," Almeida said. "It's really difficult."
Scooby would beg treats from guests in the breakfast room, Almeida said.
"Having an animal in the breakfast buffet area doesn't fly with the department of health," he said.
When Scooby eventually got into an altercation with another guest's pet, "Kim knew things had to change," Almeida said.
An earlier visit?
After Spitz was fired, Almeida didn't see him or talk to him.
Two days before he was shot, Almeida said, he saw someone walk into the lobby, enter the breakfast room and begin watching television. Almeida at first didn't recognize that it was Spitz because his appearance had changed.
When Bates realized it was Spitz, "her jaw dropped. She got kind of white. For all we know he could have been targeting her, too," Almeida said.
Barry Trice, vice president of Guest Services, the company that manages the inn, has heard the theory that Spitz may have had other targets.
"It's one thing we will never know," Trice said.
But Trice disputes that Spitz was at the inn that Friday, "because (Bates) would have definitely told me if he was even in the vicinity of the hotel," Trice said. "That would have been unusual."
Trice said Bates was not available for comment Thursday.
Almeida said his legs are paralyzed. He has sensation in all his extremities and chest. He can move his arms and hands, but not his legs.
"It's a very difficult setup for me," he said. "I'm a gymnast. I'm a springboard diver. I like to stay active. This is going to be quite challenging."
Almeida said he wrote Thursday in his Facebook page: "I finally realized today that I'm a quadriplegic."
