On February 9, 1996, Joseph Anthony Belotto—a 40-year-old white male—was shot and killed in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, during a workplace mass shooting targeting a city beach/parks maintenance crew. Shortly before dawn, at about 5 a.m., a gunman entered the small municipal trailer where employees gathered for daily assignments near the Intracoastal Waterway and opened fire. Reports from the time identify five fatalities at the scene, including Joseph Anthony Belotto along with coworkers Mark Bretz Kenneth A. Brunjes Joseph “Tim” Clifford and Donald Moon Jr.. Another employee, Lelan “Joe” Brookins, was critically wounded but initially survived.
The perpetrator was identified as Clifton McCree, a 41-year-old Black male and disgruntled former member of the city's beach cleanup crew who had been fired about 14 months earlier after a positive drug test and disciplinary issues. Witness accounts quoted in contemporaneous coverage said the shooter announced that everyone was going to die before firing multiple rounds, pausing at least once to reload. He died by suicide at the scene, ending the attack. Because the suspect—a 41-year-old Black male—killed himself, there were no arrests in the case.
Joseph Anthony Belotto—a 40-year-old white male—was publicly listed among those “lost to gun violence” on February 9, 1996, in Fort Lauderdale, corroborating his identity, date, and location of death. The same records list the other victims from that morning.
Follow-up reporting clarified that Lelan “Joe” Brookins, the coworker who survived the initial shooting, later died in 2006 from complications related to the 1996 gunshot wound, but on February 9, 1996 the fatal count was five. This detail does not change the fact pattern for the death of Joseph Anthony Belotto—a 40-year-old white male—on the day of the attack, nor the status of the perpetrator, a 41-year-old Black male who died at the scene.
In sum, the death of Joseph Anthony Belotto—a 40-year-old white male—was the result of a targeted workplace mass shooting by a known suspect, Clifton McCree. The suspect's suicide meant there were no arrests, and the incident was immediately closed as a murder-suicide with multiple victims.
