Deadliest shooting in American history leaves at least 50 slain at Orlando gay club; gunman pledged allegiance to ISIS, mentioned Boston bombers in 911 call
A terrorist who pledged allegiance to ISIS sprayed bullets from an automatic weapon, killing 50 people and wounding 53 others at a popular gay club in Orlando early Sunday — the deadliest shooting in U.S. history.
Omar Mateen, an American citizen whose parents were born in Afghanistan, died in a shootout with police following a three-hour standoff at the Pulse nightclub.
Mateen, of Fort Pierce, Fla., called 911 about 20 minutes into the shooting, which started just after 2 a.m., according to CNN. In the phone call, he pledged allegiance to ISIS and referenced the Tsarnaev brothers who carried out the deadly 2013 bombing of the Boston Marathon.
Authorities said the 29-year-old Mateen had twice been grilled by the FBI for possible connections to terrorism, but the probes were inconclusive. He wasn’t charged. A handgun and the AR-15-style weapon he carried into the club were legally purchased. The terrorist bought them within the last week or so, officials said.
Mateen, who was born in New York, had worked as a security guard and was licensed in Florida to carry a firearm, Florida records show.Police said the killer also had some type of device, possibly an explosive, on his body.The Islamic State claimed responsibility for the carnage.In a sobering address to the nation hours after the shooting, President Obama called the attack “an act of terror and an act of hate.”
“This is a sobering reminder that attacks on any Americans, regardless of race, ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation, is an attack on all of us and on the fundamental values of equality and dignity that define us as a country,” he said.
The hate-filled attacker died in a shootout with police. Orlando Police Chief John Mina said the shooter was “organized and well prepared.”
Mateen was not under investigation at the time of the attack. He had been investigated by the FBI twice since 2013 for possible terrorist ties, FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge Ron Hopper said.
In 2013, Mateen was investigated for making “inflammatory comments to co-workers alleging possible terrorist ties,” Hopper said. Nothing was confirmed. The following year he was investigated for ties to Moner Mohammad Abusalha, an American suicide bomber who killed himself in Syria.
“It didn’t seem to rise to terrorism,” Rep. Pete King (R-L.I.) added.
The attacked club went from a place of revelry to a nightmare.
“There’s blood everywhere,” Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer said.
Omar Mateen, the lone suspect for the deadliest mass shooting in American history.
(MYSPACE)The carnage began just around closing time at 2 a.m. as about 320 people finished up their drinks and prepared to head home following “Latin Night” at the club.
The killer first opened fire inside Pulse, mowing down clubgoers. Confusion and chaos overwhelmed the club. Music abruptly stopped and gave way to cries of terror.
“It’s just something that you see in the movies but never think would happen to you,” Kenneth Melendez, whose four friends were shot, told the Orlando Sentinel. “At first, when I heard the shots, I thought it was part of the music, but then we realized it was really happening. I started running and saw someone bleeding from the arm and I was like, ‘Wow, this is really happening,’ and I kept running.”
He added that he frequently went to Pulse because it was a “safe environment where you could express yourself ... Not anymore.”Mateen exchanged fire with an off-duty cop outside the club before reentering, firing several more shots and taking hostages.
“Everyone get out of pulse and keep running,” the club posted to Facebook in the midst of the madness.Christopher Hansen was in the VIP area when the slaughter began.
“I was thinking, are you kidding me? So I just dropped down. I just said, ‘Please, please, please, I want to make it out,’” he said. “And when I did, I saw people shot. I saw blood. You hope and pray you don’t get shot.
”The gunman holed up in the club, creating a standoff with police.“We were just leaving the club and we started hearing the shots,” clubber Anthony Torres told the Daily News. “Everyone was running and screaming.”
Agonizing hours passed until around 5 a.m., when police opted to mount an assault. They detonated two explosives to distract the gunman as 11 officers stormed the club and shot and killed the terrorist. Police, using an armored vehicle, rescued about 30 people still held hostage in the club, Mina said.
One cop dodged death thanks to his Kevlar helmet, which protected him from a bullet to the head.
Police announced the shooter was dead just before 6 a.m. and called the incident a “mass casualty situation.”
About 12 hours later, bodies were still inside the club, which was perforated with bullet holes. Investigators combing the scene tuned out the constant ringing of phones belonging to the dead who had yet to be publicly identified, according to CNN.
Parts of the building had been blasted through, apparently by explosives.
The death toll exceeded the carnage at Virginia Tech in 2007, where 32 were gunned down, and in Newtown, Conn., where 26 people were killed in 2012.
As police sought to determine a motive for the latest massacre, Mateen’s father, Seddique Mateen, said that radical Islam was not a factor.
“This has nothing to do with religion,” the dad told NBC News.
He said that his son had become angry when he saw two men kissing in Miami several months prior.
“We are saying we are apologizing for the whole incident. We weren’t aware of any action he is taking. We are in shock like the whole country,” Seddique Mateen said.
A portrait of Mateen as a violent, unstable man began to emerge late Sunday.
Mateen inflicted “physical and emotional abuse” on his spouse during a brief marriage in 2009, the ex-wife’s dad in Edison, N.J., told The News. The killer’s former father-in-law, who asked not to be named, said his daughter divorced the deranged man in 2011.
In Paris, people rallied in support of Orlando. The City of Light was the site of the November ISIS attacks that killed 130, including 89 in a shooting rampage during a rock concert at the Bataclan theater.
The shooting at Pulse happened during Pride Month, a national LGBTQ celebration honoring the Stonewall riots in 1969.
The devastated owner of the club, Barbara Poma, said Pulse had been “a place of love and acceptance for the LGBTQ community” for nearly 15 years.
The carnage at Pulse follows the murder of “The Voice” contestant Christina Grimmie, who was shot to death during a meet-and-greet after her Orlando concert Friday.
Pulse is approximately four miles from the Plaza Live theater, where Grimmie was slain. Authorities said the two incidents are not related.
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