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| Mina Justice speaks to a reporter discussing texting with her son who was in a bathroom at Club Pulse, Sunday June, 12, 2016, in Orlando. He hasn't been found today. A gunman wielding an assault-type rifle and a handgun opened fire inside a crowded gay nightclub early Sunday, killing at least 50 people before dying in a gunfight with SWAT officers, police said.It was the deadliest mass shooting in American history. |
ORLANDO, Fla.
(AP) -- It had been an evening of drinking, dancing and drag
shows. After hours of revelry, the party-goers crowding the gay
nightclub known as the Pulse took their last sips before the place
closed.
That's when authorities say Omar
Mateen emerged, carrying an AR-15 and spraying the helpless crowd with
bullets. Witnesses said he fired relentlessly - 20 rounds, 40, then 50
and more. In such tight quarters, the bullets could hardly miss. He shot
at police. He took hostages.
When the gunfire
finally stopped, 50 people were dead and dozens critically wounded in
the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. Mateen, who
authorities said had pledged allegiance to Islamic State in a 911 call
shortly before the attack, died in a gun battle with SWAT team members.
Authorities
immediately began investigating whether the assault was an act of
terrorism and probing the background of Mateen, a 29-year-old American
citizen from Fort Pierce, Florida, who had worked as a security guard.
The gunman's father recalled that his son recently got angry when he saw
two men kissing in Miami and said that might be related to the assault.
Thirty-nine of the dead were killed at the club, and 11 people died at hospitals, Mayor Buddy Dyer said.
Jon
Alamo had been dancing at the Pulse for hours when he wandered into the
club's main room just in time to see the gunman. "You ever seen how
Marine guys hold big weapons, shooting from left to right? That's how he
was shooting at people," he said.
"My first thought was, oh my God, I'm going to die," Alamo said. "I was praying to God that I would live to see another day."
Pulse
patron Eddie Justice texted his mother, Mina: "Mommy I love you. In
club they shooting." About 30 minutes later, hiding in a bathroom, he
texted her: "He's coming. I'm gonna die." As Sunday wore on, she awaited
word on his fate.
At least 53 people were
hospitalized, most in critical condition, and a surgeon at Orlando
Regional Medical Center said the death toll was likely to climb.
The
previous deadliest mass shooting in the U.S. was the 2007 attack at
Virginia Tech, where a student killed 32 people before killing himself.
Mateen's family was from Afghanistan, and he was born in New York. His family later moved to Florida, authorities said.
A
law enforcement official said the gunman made a 911 call from the club
in which he professed allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State, Abu
Bakr al-Baghdadi. The official was familiar with the investigation, but
was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on
condition of anonymity.
The extremist group
did not officially claim responsibility for the attack, but the IS-run
Aamaq news agency cited an unnamed source as saying the attack was
carried out by an Islamic State fighter.
Even if the attacker supported IS, it was unclear whether the group planned or knew of the attack beforehand.
Mateen
was not unknown to law enforcement: In 2013, he made inflammatory
comments to co-workers and was interviewed twice, according to FBI agent
Ronald Hopper, who called the interviews inconclusive.
In 2014, Hopper
said, officials found that Mateen had ties to an American suicide
bomber, but the agent described the contact as minimal, saying it did
not constitute a threat at the time.
Asked if
the gunman had a connection to radical Islamic terrorism, Hopper said
authorities had "suggestions that individual has leanings towards that."
Mateen
purchased at least two firearms legally within the last week or so,
according to Trevor Velinor of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and
Firearms.
In a separate incident, an Indiana
man armed with three assault rifles and chemicals used to make
explosives was arrested Sunday in Southern California and told police he
wanted to do harm to a gay pride parade.
The Orlando shooting started about 2 a.m., with more than 300 people inside the Pulse.
"He
had an automatic rifle, so nobody stood a chance," said Jackie Smith,
who saw two friends next to her get shot. "I just tried to get out of
there."
At 2:09 a.m., Pulse posted on its Facebook page: "Everyone get out of Pulse and keep running."
Mateen
exchanged gunfire with 14 police officers at the club, and took
hostages at one point. In addition to the assault rifle, the shooter
also had a handgun and some sort of "suspicious device," the police
chief said.
About 5 a.m., authorities sent in a SWAT team to rescue the
remaining club-goers, Police Chief John Mina
said.
At
first, officers mistakenly thought the gunman had strapped explosives
to the dead after a bomb robot sent back images of a battery part next
to a body, Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer said. That prevented paramedics from
going in until authorities determined the battery was something that
fell out of an exit sign or a smoke detector, he said.
The
robot was sent in after SWAT team members put explosive charges on a
wall and an armored vehicle knocked it down in an effort to rescue
hostages.
Just before 6 a.m., the Pulse posted
an update on its Facebook: "As soon as we have any information, we will
update everyone. Please keep everyone in your prayers as we work
through this tragic event. Thank you for your thoughts and love."
Authorities
were looking into whether the shooter acted alone, according to Danny
Banks, an agent with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
"This
is an incident, as I see it, that we certainly classify as domestic
terror incident," Orange County Sheriff Jerry Demings said.
Mateen's father, Mir Seddique, told NBC News about his son seeing the men kissing a couple of months
ago.
"We are saying we are apologizing for the whole incident," Seddique said. "We are in shock like the whole country."
Mateen
was a security guard with a company called G4S. In a 2012 newsletter,
the firm identified him as working in West Palm Beach. In a statement
sent Sunday to the Palm Beach Post, the company confirmed that he had
been an employee since September 2007. State records show that Mateen
had held a firearms license since at least 2011.
President
Barack Obama called the shooting an "act of terror" and an "act of
hate" targeting a place of "solidarity and empowerment" for gays and
lesbians. He urged Americans to decide whether this is the kind of
"country we want to be."
Authorities said they
had secured a van owned by the suspect outside the club. Meanwhile, a
SWAT truck and a bomb-disposal unit were on the scene of an address
associated with Mateen in Fort Pierce, about 120 miles southeast of
Orlando.
Across the country, police departments stepped up patrols in neighborhoods frequented by the LGBT community.
