Guido Tassini still lives with the trauma and bullet fragments lodged in his body nearly three years after he was shot multiple times in the doorway of his Brickell Key condo unit.
“Just being scared of things you shouldn’t be scared of is the hardest part,” Tassini said in an exclusive interview with NBC6.
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“I had six bullet impacts. The most dangerous were the ones in my stomach and torso,” he said. “I remember just being covered in blood and seeing my hands. When I was on the floor I made my peace, I said, this is it.”
One of the last things the 32-year-old Tassini remembers is being loaded into an ambulance on that July day in 2020, and then waking up in the ICU four days later. He says he spent 30 days in the hospital.
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Police arrested then-27-year-old Franco Rainuzzo one day after the shooting.
Detectives said Rainuzzo stole a car from his own building, drove to the Isola Condominium and then briefly spoke with security.
Tassini’s attorneys shared a surveillance video they said shows the shooter wearing a white helmet, entering the building and going into the elevator, as described in the police report.
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According to the detectives, Rainuzzo went to the 15th floor, knocked on the victim's door, shot him several times and then took off.
After invoking his rights, police say Rainuzzo told them, “Maybe next time,” while smirking.
The question that still haunts Tassini is: why?
“We don't know. No one knows,” Tassini said, adding he was friends with a relative of the shooter from growing up but they haven’t spoken in years.
“They moved away from the neighborhood when I was 14 and no contact ever since then,” he said.
After several delays in the case, Rainuzzo pleaded guilty to attempted murder and was sentenced to 20 years in prison.
“Mr. Tassini flatlined a couple of times and had to be resuscitated. That's how close this was to an actual homicide,” said Juan Vargas, one of the victim’s attorneys.
Tassini is now suing the Isola Condominium Association, its management company and a handful of other parties, alleging in the lawsuit they were negligent and should have done more to stop the shooter.
“There were at least six separate instances where the condominium and those working for the condominium could have stopped this from happening,” said Gary Davidson, another attorney representing the victim.
One of those instances, according to the suit, was when the shooter was able to enter the elevator without supervision or Tassini’s authorization.
“Every level of typical adequate security for condominium Isola Condominium failed miserably to do what it was supposed to protect its residents,” Davidson said.
NBC6 reached out to attorneys and representatives for the defendants listed in Tassini’s lawsuit.
A spokesperson for the management company, FirstService Residential, said they’re unable to comment because the lawsuit is pending.
The manager of the security company, then Field Protective Services, said they were not required to provide security at the time of the shooting because their contract was for overnight services.
NBC6 has not heard back from the rest yet.
