INDIAN RIVER COUNTY — Two employees of a hookah bar outside Vero Beach narrowly escaped a bullet early Friday that police say was fired by a former employee.
The man had made an ominous statement about the business nights before, a co-owner of the bar said.
Jacolby Dunbar, 34, of the 1100 block of Old Dixie Highway, was arrested Friday afternoon and charged with attempted murder and trespassing, according to the Indian River County Sheriff’s Office.
A bullet from a .380 handgun shattered the glass door of Good Vibez Kava and Hookah Bar, 1185 Old Dixie Highway, and passed between a man and woman standing on either side, said co-owner Geenah Jackson.
No one was injured. Store surveillance footage showed the gunman running after firing one shot, she said. Jackson, 28, said she was not there when the shot was fired, but has since spoken with the bar employees.
“They are just fine,” said Jackson. “It was a very horrible situation for them — it was traumatizing.”
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The hookah bar is just south of the Vero Beach city limits at the southwest corner of the intersection of 12th Street and Old Dixie Highway. Jackson said the employees were closing the bar around 2:15 a.m. Friday when someone in what looked like a disguise approached and asked vague questions.
“A few nights before, he approached us and he told us, ‘Don’t worry; nothing’s going to happen to your bar,'” she said.
Jackson co-owns the bar with Jimmy Fanning, 38, and said Dunbar worked there for roughly one week about two months ago.
Sheriff’s deputies said Dunbar was ordered to stay off the property and was given a no-trespass warning after deputies were called there for previous incidents, the Sheriff's Office said Saturday in a Facebook post.
With a listed home address less than a block from the business, Jackson said Dunbar was regularly seen passing outside the bar and with his face covered by bandannas.
In the black-and-white surveillance footage, the figure of what appears to be a man is seen standing in the parking lot, several feet from the two employees at the bar entrance. Jackson said he could be seen outside for at least 20 minutes before the bar closed.
“They opened the door and they were approached,” she said. “He was a bit vague about everything, asking about a red hoody … to lure somebody closer to him.”
The footage and audio show that after a brief series of questions, the employees told him the bar was closed, and began going inside. A train is heard approaching on tracks just west of the building and the man is seen in the video lifting his arm before a shot is heard and the glass door between the man and woman shatters.
“He shot and ran,” she said.
A Sheriff's Office SWAT unit detained Dunbar at 2:30 p.m. after a daylong investigation, according to the agency. Further details about his arrest were unavailable Saturday.
The bar was opened in 2019 at the Shoppes of Old Dixie next to a smoke-and-vape shop business also owned by Fanning. Jackson said after the incident early Friday they were planning to close it and relocate, saying, “the safety of everybody is our main concern.”
"In a normal circumstance this would’ve been handled by our professional security so quickly," she said, adding that that night the guard was inside the bar helping clean.
Dunbar was jailed without bail for violating probation conditions of a late 2020 arrest in which police say he resisted a deputy after a heated exchange with a convenience store clerk, according to Sheriff’s Office reports.
Court records show Dunbar was entered into mental health court to resolve the charges, but had recently stopped complying with its requirement to talk weekly with a case manager.
Corey Arwood is a breaking news reporter for TCPalm. Follow Corey on Twitter @coreyarwood, or reach him by phone at 772-978-2246.