Gunman in a yoga studio had been accused of battery against women, Records Show



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Police said Saturday that she still did not know what had brought a 40-year-old man to a yoga studio Friday in Tallahassee, Florida, where he reportedly killed two women and injured five others before killing himself and commit suicide.

However, a photo of the gunman, Scott P. Beierle, of Deltona, Florida, and his victims, who were both related to Florida State University, where Mr. Beierle had been arrested at least twice in the past, began to appear slowly.

Mr. Beierle arrived at the yoga studio shortly after 5:30 pm, pretending to be a client, and began shooting clients with a handgun without warning, the police said.

People inside the studio, Hot Yoga Tallahassee, fought back against Mr Beierle, preventing further tragedy, said Michael DeLeo, chief of the Tallahassee Police Department, in a statement on Saturday.

Officials identified victims killed as 61-year-old Dr. Nancy Van Vessem and 21-year-old Maura Binkley. Three of the wounded had been released from the hospital on Saturday morning. The other two were in a stable state, the police said. Four of the victims were women and one man.

John Thrasher, President of Florida State University, says on Twitter On Saturday, Ms. Binkley was a student at the university and Dr. Van Vessem was a faculty member. A profile on the university's website indicates that Dr. Van Vessem is responsible for coordinating third- and fourth-year internal medicine internships on the Tallahassee campus.

Ms. Binkley, an elder, was due to graduate in May, said her aunt Azalee Vereen. Ms. Binkley specialized in journalism and German and was preparing for life after graduation by applying to programs such as Fulbright and Teach for America.

Ms. Binkley, who grew up in the northern suburbs of Atlanta, was "very smart, very beautiful and just very generous," Ms. Vereen said.

She said that her niece liked the yoga classes but did not follow them from time to time.

Chief DeLeo said Mr. Beierle was a graduate of Florida State University and lived in a local hotel before the shooting. Investigators are still trying to determine a connection between the shooter and the victims or the studio, said the chief.

The Volusia County Sheriff's Office executed a search warrant on Saturday at Mr. Beierle's home, and several search warrants were obtained for his electronic devices and social network profiles.

Records in Leon County, Florida, show that Mr. Beierle left Vestal, New York, near Binghamton, to travel to Tallahassee in 2011.

The court records show that Mr Beierle was charged with murder in December 2012 after a woman accused him of being seized from the buttocks in a refectory located on the campus of the Florida State University in Tallahassee. The charges were dismissed in May 2013.

In 2014, Mr. Beierle was charged with trespassing into a campus dining room and underwent some kind of preliminary intervention, although on Saturday it was unclear exactly what this involved or how the case had been resolved. .

In June 2016, Mr Beierle was again charged with battery, but the charge was rejected in 2017.

According to the local TV channel WCTV, the arrest of 2016 took place after Mr. Beierle was accused of seizing a woman's buttocks in her building. The court records indicate that he asked a woman who was sunbathing if he could apply sunscreen on her buttocks, and he grabbed them after she said no, the station reported.

Don Pumphrey Jr., a lawyer whose firm represented Mr. Beierle in the 2012 and 2016 cases, declined to comment on these cases on Saturday. "Our hearts go to families," he said.

Jack Campbell, a Florida attorney, declined to comment on the case and asked questions to the Tallahassee Police Department, who did not answer questions on Saturday.

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