Lukace Kendle: Club Lexx Shooting, Trial, and Sentence

Lukace Kendle is a former Florida armed security guard serving a life sentence for the Club Lexx shooting, in which he killed Kijuan Byrd and paralyzed Michael Smathers in the parking lot of a Miami-Dade strip club on June 1, 2012. A jury rejected his Stand Your Ground defense in September 2015 and convicted him of second-degree murder and attempted second-degree murder.¹

What Happened in the Parking Lot

Around 11 p.m. on June 1, 2012, Kendle was working as an armed guard at Club Lexx, also known as Club Ro-lexx, on Northwest 27th Avenue in Miami-Dade County. Byrd, 29, and his best friend Michael Smathers were sitting in a gray Ford pickup. Kendle, carrying a Glock 19, later told investigators he saw the men rolling a marijuana cigarette and heard one of them shout a threat to kill someone, which he said made him fear for his life.²

Smathers told the jury none of that happened. He testified that he and Byrd never spoke to Kendle, that the guard approached with his weapon already drawn, and that he raised his hands and said, “Don’t shoot, my hands are up,” before Kendle opened fire.³ Both men were unarmed.⁴

Kendle fired at least 12 rounds. Smathers was struck four times and left paralyzed from the waist down. Byrd fell out of the truck and crawled underneath it for cover, but Kendle pursued him and kept shooting. Byrd was hit at least 11 times, including multiple shots in the back, and died at the hospital.⁵⁶

Who Lukace Kendle Was

Kendle was 26 at the time of the shooting. A 190-pound bodybuilder nicknamed “Juice,” he had been discharged from the U.S. Navy for multiple alcohol-related offenses.⁷⁵

His employer, Force Protection Security, had been investigated by Florida regulators four times before the Club Lexx shooting. A former guard had complained that owner Belgrave Arellano hired untrained and unlicensed armed guards. When regulators asked for payroll records, Arellano said he had destroyed them. The state closed the investigation after imposing a $250 fine.⁸

The Delayed Arrest

Kendle was not arrested for a week after the shooting. Byrd’s family, represented by attorney Benjamin Crump, held public protests and a news conference pressing authorities to act. “My son is gone, and we can’t bring him back,” Arlene Byrd told reporters. “And we’re going to be reminded of that tomorrow morning, when we bury him.”⁹

On June 8, 2012, the Miami-Dade State Attorney’s Office issued a warrant, and Kendle was arrested at home. He was charged with second-degree murder for Byrd’s death and attempted second-degree murder for the shooting of Smathers. A judge denied bond the next day.¹⁰

Why the Case Took Three Years to Try

Kendle’s mental competency stalled the case for years. In custody, jail psychiatrists diagnosed him with impulse control disorder and antisocial personality disorder. Later evaluations added delusional disorder, unspecified schizophrenia spectrum disorder, alcohol use disorder, and narcissistic personality features.⁵ He refused to wear clothes, fasted, and threatened suicide.⁴

A trial court found him incompetent to stand trial on December 12, 2013, and again on November 13, 2014. He was involuntarily committed. After hospitalization, and without being medicated, he was restored to competency on March 3, 2015. During the pretrial period he repeatedly asked to represent himself, cycling through two privately retained lawyers and a public defender before Miami-Dade Circuit Judge Dava Tunis allowed him to proceed pro se. The court appointed standby counsel, Abe Bailey, whose assistance Kendle never accepted.¹

The Trial

Trial began on August 31, 2015, before Judge Tunis in Miami-Dade Circuit Court. Kendle, then 29, represented himself. He argued the shooting was justified under Florida’s Stand Your Ground law and told the jury the evidence against him had been fabricated because of his race. “The reason the evidence was fabricated is because I’m white,” he said, blaming his arrest on political fallout from the George Zimmerman case.¹¹

Judge Tunis had already barred that comparison. When Kendle made it anyway, she cut him off: “We discussed this at length. This is the only warning I’m giving. I ruled according to the law.”⁴

Smathers, still paralyzed, was transported to the courthouse by ambulance to testify. He told jurors that he and Byrd never left their vehicle before the shooting started and that he had begged Kendle not to fire.³ On September 4, 2015, the jury found Kendle guilty on both counts.²

Sentence and Appeal

Kendle received a life sentence with a 25-year minimum mandatory term for the second-degree murder of Kijuan Byrd, and a concurrent 30-year sentence with a 25-year minimum mandatory term for the attempted second-degree murder of Michael Smathers.¹

He appealed to Florida’s Third District Court of Appeal, arguing the trial court had not done enough to confirm he understood the consequences of self-representation and that the judge and prosecutors had made improper comments about his right to remain silent and his decision to act as his own lawyer. On August 15, 2018, a three-judge panel led by Chief Judge Rothenberg rejected both claims and affirmed the conviction and sentence. The court found that Judge Tunis had “diligently and painstakingly” questioned Kendle at every critical stage and that his waiver of counsel was knowing and voluntary. The challenges to prosecutorial and judicial comments were reviewed only for fundamental error because Kendle had not objected at trial, and the court found none.¹²

The case later became a centerpiece of “Hired Guns,” a 2014 investigation by the Center for Investigative Reporting’s Reveal, produced with CNN, that documented gaps in how states license and oversee armed security guards.¹³

1
Findlaw. Kendle v. State, No. 3D16-243
2
NBC Miami. Man Found Guilty in Club Lexx Shooting Faces Life in Prison
3
NBC Miami. Paralyzed Shooting Victim Testifies in Court Against Suspect
4
Reveal News. Former Armed Guard Charged With Murder Says Evidence Was Fabricated
5
Reveal News. Florida Clubgoer’s Death Shows Weak Links in Security Guard Licensing
6
The Ledger. Security Guard Charged With Murder
7
CNN. Armed Guards Investigation
8
Reveal News. Results May Be Deadly When Armed Guards Don’t Get Mental Health Checks
9
NBC Miami. Family of Victim Demands Arrest in Club Lexx Shooting
10
CBS News Miami. Security Guard Arrested, Charged With Murder in Club Lexx Shooting
11
Orlando Sentinel. Miami Security Guard Blames George Zimmerman for Arrest in Killing of Unarmed Man
12
vLex. Kendle v. State, 255 So.3d 400
13
Reveal News. Shootings by Security Guards Rarely Reported, Let Alone Investigated