30-year-old killed at Jasper County nightclub shot 7 times by security guard, police say
Jazmon Singleton, 31, of Savannah was looking for her cousin inside Club Karma, a Hardeeville nightclub near the border of Georgia, early Sunday morning.
A fight broke out in the club, and she heard that her cousin, Paul Miles, 30, of Garden City, Ga. was thrown out.
“I keep looking around,” said Singleton, “I called and said ‘you good?’” The call went to voicemail.
A friend told her that Miles was in the back of the club with friends. That would prove to be false, but it made Singleton relax.
Not until later in the night, when Singleton was halfway home, did she hear the news. A family member called to say Miles had been shot and killed in the parking lot.
In the area’s second fatal security guard shooting in a week, a Club Karma security guard shot Miles seven times in the parking lot, according to a report from the Jasper County Sheriff’s Office.
After police arrived at 4:39 a.m., the guard told officers that Miles had had a handgun visible inside his waistband.
The guard said Miles was opening his car door as if to leave, but then reached for his handgun. The guard then began firing at him, the report states.
Two witnesses said the guard fired a rifle.
The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette is not identifying the guard because police have not charged him.
Miles was a single father to a 5-year-old son, Singleton said.
She said the story the security guard told doesn’t make sense.
There may have been a gun in the car, she said, but she knows her cousin did not come back from the club with a weapon because he did not enter with one.
“Why would he pull a gun out when they have an AR pointing at him?” she said, “He (wouldn’t) kill himself like that.”
‘Pretty traumatizing’
When the Jasper County Sheriff’s Office arrived, security staff at Club Karma turned three guns over to the officers, according to the police report.
The guard told police he used one to shoot Miles. The second was in Miles’ waistband. And the third was in the pocket of a passenger in Miles’ car.
Chris Mullins, who works in the Port of Savannah, was at Club Karma on Saturday night.
Miles, his friend, was thrown out of the club mistakenly, Mullins said. Security thought he was involved in a fight.
Miles began to argue with the security guard.
The guard who acknowledged shooting Miles told police that he originally went over to Miles’ car to ask him to leave.
Tyler Williams, of Hinesville, Ga., was pulling into the parking lot of Club Karma around the time of the confrontation. Williams and his friend had come to see another friend that night.
He saw “two guys arguing” next to a car: Miles and the Club Karma security guard. Williams said he saw Miles open the car door and then the guard fire several shots.
He said it “didn’t look like” Miles was armed.
“I felt bad and scared at the same time. Not something you want to see,” said Williams. “Pretty traumatizing.”
Mullins, of Savannah, said he’s known Miles since middle school.
To pull a gun on the security guard, “that’s not even his character, to be hostile in a situation like that,” said Mullins.
The Sheriff’s Office put the weapons in the trunk of a deputy’s car while they waited for S.C. Law Enforcement Division’s officers to arrive.
Because the shooting involved a security officer, SLED is investigating it as they would an officer-involved shooting. Security guards are not certified law enforcement officers, but they must be approved by SLED to be armed.
Tommy Crosby, a spokesperson with the agency, said Club Karma security is certified with SLED.
Miles’ autopsy was scheduled for Tuesday, according to Jasper County Coroner Martin Sauls. He died from his injuries at 5:21 a.m. Sunday at Memorial Health University Medical Center in Savannah.
Aggressive security
Security staff at Club Karma have a reputation for being rough or threatening toward customers, according to some club-goers.
On the night of March 6, Anita Allen, of Port Wentworth, Ga., said she was sitting near the stage at Club Karma and had been drinking. She said it looked like she was asleep, which is what a security guard thought when he wrapped his arms around her from behind and picked her up.
Allen said the guard then carried her outside and threw her down the stairs.
“My knees are scarred up. My lip was busted. My hand was messed up,” said Allen.
Allen said she messaged the club’s owner, Jacky Somesso, on Facebook in March to complain, where she said Somesso read it and did not answer. Allen sent another message on May 5, and sent a screenshot of it. That message went unanswered as well.
Michael Anderson, of Savannah, said he’s been to the club only once because he witnessed security “throw their weight around.”
Anderson said he watched a security officer point his gun at a patron in the parking lot to get him to leave. The guard, he said, threatened to “put a hole” in the man’s chest.
A call to the nightclub went unanswered on Monday. A reporter sent two Facebook messages to Somesso on Monday and Tuesday.
The shooting on Sunday is not the first at Club Karma.
In 2016, a man was charged with attempted murder in a shooting at the nightclub. His charges have since been dropped. An armed robbery in 2012 resulted in a man being shot multiple times.
The club filed a lawsuit against the Jasper County Sheriff’s Office over a 2017 incident in which Somesso alleges that the Sheriff’s Office improperly shut down a concert and defamed her business.
Somesso has asked for a half-million dollars in damages, according to the lawsuit’s initial filing. The case is awaiting trial, but the judge is considering a summary judgment on November 5.
Sunday’s shooting is under investigation by SLED, which will determine whether the shooting was criminal and if anyone should be charged.
Singleton, Miles’ cousin, said the worst part is that Miles won’t be around for his 5-year-old son.
“He’s an excellent father,” she said. “He picks him up from school every day. He does everything.”
This story was originally published October 27, 2020 at 3:47 PM.
