Orlando / Pulse Mass Shooting Thread

[MacCruiskeen]

Wait a minute: "Florida Official Suspended For Orlando Attack Comments"? No. If the date on those Facebook comments is correct (Sunday June 6th), then he said all those things a full six days before the Orlando attack.

Why hasn't Kenneth Lewis been arrested? Why aren't the FBI interrogating him? Why is he not a "person of interest"?

Is that date correct?

[FourthBase]

Uh oh. I'd take that down right quick 4B before moderation steps in and you would like to continue your conversation.

I am NOT a fucking racist, and I refuse to be polite about it. If he said it to my face, I would literally punch him.

If someone called me a racist to my face, I would just laugh.

I wouldn't.

Personally I would not punch anyone ever unless I was physically being assaulted. This is just the Internet. Take it off the thread for sake of integrity of us all.

Fine.

And to be honest I would probably only spit at his feet. Which I would hope would escalate the situation to the fight stage where a punch to his face was warranted as self-defense or something. But I wouldn't care about going to jail for assault, tbh. Nobody fucking calls me a racist to my face.

[MacCruiskeen]

So, to sum up the state of play one week after the attacks:

1. A brutal mass murder was carried out in Pulse, an Orlando nightclub frequented mainly by gay people and people of colour. It is a reasonable hypothesis that the killer was either a rabid racist or a virulent homophobe or both.

2. The Designated Culprit is Omar Mateen (29), a club regular who was among the 49 people shot dead there. He was a darkskinned bisexual Afghan-American, married to Noor Mateen, a Palestinian-American woman who apparently loved him and whom he apparently loved, and they were also the loving parents of a three-year-old son. As a club regular, he was a familar sight to many of the Pulse clientele and staff.

3. Omar Mateen has so far been identified as the shooter by precisely none of the hundreds of witnesses to the massacre.

4. Indeed, no surviving witness to the massacre has yet given even the vaguest physical description of the attacker (or attackers) -- or if any of them have done so, then these descriptions have not yet appeared in the media. (Please correct me if I'm wrong.)

5. The only "evidence" so far presented against Omar Mateen is:

(a) a claim by his father that Omar disliked the sight of two men kissing in the presence of his young son;

(b) a claim (by a woman he was with, many years ago, for a few months) that he was not a nice guy and used to hit her;

(c) reports from his former school that he was an unruly child.

(d) various nondescript and unverifiable (and in any case entirely non-incriminating) assertions and insinuations from various "sources", all of them anonymous.

6. Noor Mateen is still being grilled by the FBI. Either that or she has "disappeared". Reports vary.

7. All Orlando police-radio communications from the hours between midnight and 3 a.m. have vanished without trace or are at least now completely inaccessible to the public.

8. No cellphone or video-surveillance footáge of the shooter has yet been shown to the public.

- We'll be back after a commercial break. Stay tuned for further details.

[Iamwhomiam]

How very disappointed I am after reading this thread.

The cop at the door of Pulse was not killed and he is still alive. The firepower he faced caused him to retreat to safety and he called in for assistance from the police.

Adam Gruler, an Orlando police officer working security for Pulse nightclub that night, traded gunshots with the gunman, Omar Mateen, near the club’s entrance.

http://www.factcheck.org/2016/06/orlando-club-had-armed-security/

Gruler, a 15-year veteran of the Orlando Police Department, was at the club, in uniform, working security. He traded gunfire with Mateen before the gunman made his way further into the club. That’s according to the Orlando Police Department.

OPD statement, June 12: On June 12, 2016, just after 2 a.m., an Orlando Police Officer working extra duty at the Pulse Nightclub, located at 1912 S. Orange Ave., responded to shots fired. Our officer engaged in a gun battle with that suspect and the suspect went deeper into the club where more shots were fired. The incident then turned into a hostage situation.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/pulse-orlando-nightclub-shooting/os-orlando-shooting-inside-club-20160613-story.html

It was just after 2 a.m. Sunday. Gruler ran toward the entrance after hearing the shots.

He was met by gunman Omar Mateen. Armed with a .223 caliber AR type rifle and a 9mm semiautomatic pistol, Mateen started exchanging gunfire with the officer.

Gruler quickly realized he was outgunned and called for backup. Gruler retreated and Mateen ran further inside the club.

Lt. Scott Smith and Sgt. Jeffrey Backhaus arrived a couple minutes later and rushed into the club. There was another flurry of shots between them and Mateen.

My heart goes out to the families, loved ones and friends of the many victims.

[MacCruiskeen]

The cop at the door of Pulse was not killed and he is still alive. The firepower he faced caused him to retreat to safety and he called in for assistance from the police.

Adam Gruler, an Orlando police officer working security for Pulse nightclub that night, traded gunshots with the gunman, Omar Mateen, near the club’s entrance.

http://www.factcheck.org/2016/06/orlando-club-had-armed-security/

Gruler, a 15-year veteran of the Orlando Police Department, was at the club, in uniform, working security. He traded gunfire with Mateen before the gunman made his way further into the club. That’s according to the Orlando Police Department.

OPD statement, June 12: On June 12, 2016, just after 2 a.m., an Orlando Police Officer working extra duty at the Pulse Nightclub, located at 1912 S. Orange Ave., responded to shots fired. Our officer engaged in a gun battle with that suspect and the suspect went deeper into the club where more shots were fired. The incident then turned into a hostage situation.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/pulse-orlando-nightclub-shooting/os-orlando-shooting-inside-club-20160613-story.html

It was just after 2 a.m. Sunday. Gruler ran toward the entrance after hearing the shots.

He was met by gunman Omar Mateen. Armed with a .223 caliber AR type rifle and a 9mm semiautomatic pistol, Mateen started exchanging gunfire with the officer.

Gruler quickly realized he was outgunned and called for backup. Gruler retreated and Mateen ran further inside the club.

Lt. Scott Smith and Sgt. Jeffrey Backhaus arrived a couple minutes later and rushed into the club. There was another flurry of shots between them and Mateen..

I thought The Terminator was fiction.

Try to imagine this "shootout". Or rather, these two "shootouts". Was Omar Mateen literally made of solid steel? Or was he wearing some kind of extremely effective full-body armour? Was his face masked too?

Mateen started exchanging gunfire with the officer

How did "the officer" identify him as "Mateen"? Or did he not? [He did not.]

Lt. Scott Smith, Sgt. Jeffrey Backhaus and Adam Gruler -- that's three named, surviving, close-range eyewitnesses, right? Have any of them given a description of the shooter? If not, why not? If so, why haven't we heard it?

[stickdog99]

So, to sum up the state of play one week after the attacks:

...

- We'll be back after a commercial break. Stay tuned for further details.

But, see, that's no fun. It's far more fun to use Mateen's presumed guilt as the starting point for further baseless speculation. That way, we can maintain our cherished illusion of the Lockean naive realism of our corporate media and its legion of unnamed official sources and eat it, too.

[MacCruiskeen]

But, see, that's no fun.

"Fun" is the word. Stickdog, we are in the position of two moviegoers in a crowded cinema loudly picking holes in the plot of a very poor fiction and groaning at the quality of the dialogue.

Meanwhile, ninety percent of the others are adoring every minute of it.

What do you expect? Love? Be glad you have not yet been lynched.

Fun ist ein Stahlbad.

[Burnt Hill]

I think it is likely that Selvon Dubon would tell us that Omar Mateen has been misidentified as he saw the shooter at the club. But maybe he is an FBI plant, attempting to incriminate an innocent man. Personally I think there is overwhelming evidence that Mateen did the shooting.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/pulse-orlando-nightclub-shooting/os-survivor-nightclub-shooting-20160617-story.html

[MacCruiskeen]

I think it is likely that Selvon Dubon would tell us that Omar Mateen has been misidentified as he saw the shooter at the club. But maybe he is an FBI plant, attempting to incriminate an innocent man. http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/pulse-orlando-nightclub-shooting/os-survivor-nightclub-shooting-20160617-story.html

Jesus christ almighty, this is becoming really frightening. People have literally lost the ability to read. (No, I am not joking.) Not once does Selvon Dubon identify the shooter as Omar Mateen. Not once. Read the article. It is the usual tissue of insinuation and manipulation. On at least one occasion, the hacks even insert the name "Mateen" into Dubon's statement!

Personally I think there is overwhelming evidence that Mateen did the shooting.

Thank you for sharing that with us. Your personal thoughts enrich us all. I just wonder who gave them to you.

[nashvillebrook]

Watching this should be mandatory for anyone questioning how he could have entered while packing an AR15

He didn't try to hide it -- walked right up and shot the off-duty officer. Here's a TIMELINE.

and btw, i was wrong, i thought the off-duty guy perished, he retreated to call for backup.

____________________




http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/pulse-orlando-nightclub-shooting/os-orlando-pulse-nightclub-shooting-timeline-htmlstory.html


An off-duty Orlando Police Department officer in the nightclub's parking lot hears shots fired and sees Omar Mateen near the entrance. They exchange fire, but the officer realizes he is "outgunned" and retreats to call for backup. Mateen goes inside.

Graphic by Eben McCue and Angelica Quintero, Los Angeles Times and Charles Minshew, Orlando Sentinel

SHORTLY AFTER 2:02 AM
Amanda Alvear, 25 (Facebook)
Club patron Amanda Alvear, 25, records video of the moment when gunfire is first heard inside Pulse on the app Snapchat. She was shot and killed.

SHORTLY AFTER 2:02 AM

Omar Mateen
Survivor Selvin Dubon, 30, sees Mateen moving across the dance floor toward the VIP seating area near the patio, firing both his rifle and a handgun.

SHORTLY AFTER 2:02 AM
A DJ turns down the music and yells: "Run. Get out. There's a guy with a gun," said club patron Pascal Mignon, 43. As Mignon runs out of the club, he sees officers running in.

TIME UNCERTAIN

Omar Mateen
Police
Two backup Orlando police officers arrive. They rush into the club and exchange fire with Mateen, who runs toward the bathrooms.

2:06 AM
Eddie Justice, 30 (Facebook)
Eddie Justice, 30, texts his mother from the club bathroom: "Mommy I love you." Then: "In club they shooting." "Trapp in bathroom." "Pulse. Downtown. Call police." And then: "I'm gonna die."

2:09 AM

Pulse posts on Facebook.

2:12 AM
Akyra Murray, 18 (Twitter)
Akyra Murray, 18, calls her mother begging for help and saying she and her cousin had been shot while hiding an a bathroom stall with others. Murray later died from her wound, and became the youngest victim to die in the Pulse shooting.

2:15 AM
Belle Isle Police Officer Justin Lemieux arrives, hearing minutes later that the shooter was barricaded in a bathroom. Officers begin removing people from the club.

2:17 AM

Survivor Brandon Wolf tweets after escaping from the club. His friends are Juan Guerrero and Christopher "Drew" Leinonen, who died in the attack.

2:25 AM
Jeff Rodriguez, who had been shot three times, sends a text message to his younger brother: "I beenx shot at club.... dying i love u." Then: "Dead bodies on top of me... tell everyone i lovethrm." Rodriguez survived but was critically injured.

2:30 AM

Associated Press via MySpace
Mateen makes three 911 calls and says he was doing this because he wanted America to stop bombing his country, according to Patience Carter, a witness in the bathroom. At some point, a police negotiator begins speaking with him. Police would not say when.
TIME UNCERTAIN

With the help of patrons, police remove a wall air-conditioning unit from a dressing room on the north side of the building and help several people escape. More escape through exits on the building's north side.

TIME UNCERTAIN
During a lull, Mateen searches the Internet for news of the shootings.

2:45 AM
Belle Isle Officers Brandon Cornwell and Jon-Paul Gargano begin pulling victims out of the main area of the nightclub.

2:45 AM
A News 13 producer takes a phone call from someone who says, "I'm the shooter. It's me...I did it for ISIS."

2:49 AM
Eddie Justice sends his mother another text message: "Hurry he's in the bathroom with us." "Is the man in the bathroom wit u?" his mother Mina Justice replied, telling her son she was calling 911 for him. "He's a terror," Eddie Justice wrote. Then: "Yes." That was the last text his mother got from him. Eddie Justice died of his injuries.

2:49 AM

Survivor Jeannette McCoy posts on Facebook.

3:17 AM

Survivor Anthony Torres posts on Facebook from outside Pulse.

3:28 AM
Orlando Fire Department radio transmission: "This is ORMC. Only trauma alerts. If they're walking, talking, anything else, [they] need to go to another unit."

3:58 AM

4 AM
Mateen texts his wife to ask if she had seen news of the shooting. She responds that she loved him.

4:05 AM
Orange County Fire Rescue radio transmission: Send EOD [Explosive Ordnance Disposal] to the scene. Bring bomb van, Hazmat and bomb technicians.

4:23 AM

Audio provided by Broadcastify

Orlando Fire Department radio transmission indicates rescue efforts are underway.

4:25 AM

Witness Nic Hornstein, watching the scene from a friend's rooftop, takes a photo of police patting down hostages that had just been released.

4:58 AM

Audio provided by Broadcastify

Orange County Fire Rescue radio transmission gives details on the extent of injuries.

APPX. 5 AM

Omar Mateen
Police
Orlando police make the decision to rescue Pulse patrons. Mina says Mateen told a negotiator that he was going to put four hostages in explosive vests, and had a vest for himself as well. Officers, fearing imminent loss of life, decide to force their way through the restroom walls.

5:03 AM

5:05 AM

5:09 AM
Per radio transmission, Orange County Fire Rescue is advised to clear the area.

5:15 AM

Witness Brett Moots, on a nearby rooftop, takes video, capturing the sound of a gun battle.

5:16 AM

Audio provided by Broadcastify

An Orlando police officer is injured, according to Orange County Fire Rescue.

5:53 AM

Sources: Orlando Sentinel, Orlando Police Department, Orlando Fire Department, Orange County Fire Rescue, AP, NPR, Snapchat, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, GoFundMe

[Burnt Hill]

I think it is likely that Selvon Dubon would tell us that Omar Mateen has been misidentified as he saw the shooter at the club. But maybe he is an FBI plant, attempting to incriminate an innocent man. http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/pulse-orlando-nightclub-shooting/os-survivor-nightclub-shooting-20160617-story.html

Jesus christ almighty, this is becoming really frightening. People have literally lost the ability to read. (No, I am not joking.) Not once does Selvon Dubon identify the shooter as Omar Mateen. Not once. Read the article. It is the usual tissue of insinuation and manipulation. On at least one occasion, the hacks even insert the name "Mateen" into Dubon's statement!

Personally I think there is overwhelming evidence that Mateen did the shooting.

Thank you for sharing that with us. Your personal thoughts enrich us all.

As do yours.
Do you not think that Selvon Dubon is aware that Omar Mateen was identified as the shooter? I am well aware of the journalistic shortcomings here, but Dubon said he saw and heard the shooter, days later don't you think he would say something if he had any doubts it was Mateen?

[stickdog99]

How very disappointed I am after reading this thread.

The cop at the door of Pulse was not killed and he is still alive. The firepower he faced caused him to retreat to safety and he called in for assistance from the police.

Thanks for the info!

Orlando Sentinel

Music blared and more than 300 people danced and milled about Pulse nightclub early Sunday as Orlando police officer Adam Gruler searched the area for a teenager who had gotten into the club with a fake ID.

He couldn't find the kid, so he headed back to the club's parking lot. That's when the shots rang out.

Those shots signaled the beginning of a three-hour nightmare that ended with Orlando becoming ground zero for the deadliest shooting in U.S. history. ..

It was just after 2 a.m. Sunday. Gruler ran toward the entrance after hearing the shots. He was met by gunman Omar Mateen. Armed with a .223 caliber AR type rifle and a 9mm semiautomatic pistol, Mateen started exchanging gunfire with the officer.

Gruler quickly realized he was outgunned and called for backup. Gruler retreated and Mateen ran further inside the club. Lt. Scott Smith and Sgt. Jeffrey Backhaus arrived a couple minutes later and rushed into the club. There was another flurry of shots between them and Mateen.

Meanwhile, dozens of people were able to escape, running out of the exits and jumping over the wall in the patio.

So now the obvious questions become:

Where are the eyewitness accounts of these three officers' courageous actions in the line of fire? What are the details of the firefights they engaged in? Exactly where did these firefights take place? Exactly what set off these firefights? Was anyone injured or killed in the crossfire of these firefights? Did Mateen shoot all those people before, during, or after these firefights? Did these three officers in the club just allow Mateen free reign to go around the club shooting and reshooting scores of people? How did 103 people get shot in a nightclub in a major city when one cop was on the scene immediately and two more cops, both (happily) SWAT team members at that, arrived on the scene "a couple of minutes later"?

And since when does a nightclub security officer leave his post to search the surrounding area for someone who has already left the club? How exactly did this work? Did Gruber card this kid on the kid's way into the club or way out of the club?

Finally, who had the better means and opportunity to shoot 100 people, the guy hiding from the two SWAT team members in the bathroom with his handful of hostages or the two SWAT team members? Is it beyond belief to suggest that perhaps the firefights had gotten a little messy in terms of collateral damage when one or more of the cops realized that dead clubgoers tell no tales?

[divideandconquer]

For the 2nd Mass Shooting in a Row, Media Allowed to Trample Evidence at Shooter’s Home

An assumption could be made that a secondary crime scene in a potential matter of national security would be treated with delicacy and scrutiny — and would be guarded against contamination from outside parties. But almost immediately following the mass shooting in Orlando — exactly as what happened after the San Bernardino massacre — mainstream media breached the ostensible crime scene at the apartment of key suspect, Omar Mateen.

This time, however, reporters didn’t need to break through a barricaded but unguarded residence — the FBI simply left the door unlocked after its initial investigation. Actually, make that two doors — the apartment’s front and back doors were not only left unlocked, they weren’t barricaded, even with the ubiquitous yellow crime scene tape.

And just like San Bernardino — when a slew of reporters rummaged through the shooters’ belongings — media crews made a mockery of the FBI in live time, snapping pictures, pushing items around, tweeting in real time pictures from Mateen’s bathroom. Pure sensationalist gawkery on display.

As an independent media narrator of a well-assembled video of this farce wryly queried, “I’m started to think this is actually part of a social experiment to prove how many people are not paying attention — or just watching Dancing With the Stars and football, and just don’t care.”

Leading the corporate media de facto breach of Mateen’s apartment was the Daily Mail who — as the TRUTHstreammedia video shows — entered the apartment less than 24 hours after the massacre at Pulse nightclub.

There have been better-protected homes of killers in cases where a single person was murdered.

After controversy raged following the similar media breach of the home of San Bernardino shooters Sayed Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, it would be a safe assumption the FBI or DHS would better protect the scene of a crucial investigation — if not as a matter of national security, at least as a criminal probe.

But reporters again rifled through belongings with abandon — showing evidence left behind by the feds seemingly incongruent with investigatory integrity.

For instance, Mateen’s expired firearm carry license had been putatively left on the kitchen counter — as a reporter pokes it with a pen and pans the camera in for a close-up. Considering Mateen carried out one of the most deadly non-governmental attacks on citizens in U.S. history, you would think the FBI might have collected the expired carry permit as critical evidence.

Booklets on Islam were also oh-so-conveniently located near the expired license — and while the CIA recently reported no evidence links the killer to the so-called Islamic State, the unlocked doors and location of these items not confiscated as evidence certainly seems a bit odd, if not outrightly staged.

“Is this the Geraldo Show?” the video’s narrator intones.

Clearly, the intrusion of multiple media outlets on the scene of an ongoing criminal investigation looks awful for the FBI — but similarly shows a complete lack of journalistic integrity and ethics. There is no evidence any of these outlets contacted the FBI or other authorities to report the lack of security at Mateen’s apartment — or to request permission to enter.

In any investigation, items are bagged, catalogued, and taken as evidence. Dusting for fingerprints is performed. DNA evidence is collected. But seemingly crucial pieces were left behind, in the open, and wholly unprotected in the unlocked residence.

In fact, there is a logical inconsistency in the lack of protection at Mateen’s apartment versus the complete refusal by authorities to release any records about the shooter.

A number of media outlets have requested the release of 911 audio — in which Mateen reportedly called to pledge his allegiance to ISIS, as well as from victims inside Pulse — but have been thwarted by the City of Orlando. Attempts to obtain records from Mateen’s time as a corrections officer, his tenure as a security guard, and other relevant information, have similarly been refused.

Why would Mateen’s previously public information be guarded more diligently than his physical address — including some items of critical import left inside?

As with many other aspects of the massacre in Orlando, the live media spectacle in Omar Mateen’s apartment simply doesn’t add up.

[nashvillebrook]

If you're saying that it wasn't LEE HARVEY OSWALD who shot THAT MAGIC BULLET AT JFK , you're beyond redemption. Look at his FRIENDS, the SOVIET UNION connection, whether there was some sort of coordination with THE CUBANS -- all of that is relevant. But dude -- OSWALD shot OUR PRESIDENT and AMERICA has reacted in the best way possible to a whole weekend of being under siege. Don't forget that this didn't start with OSWALD

^^ old strategy. old tactics.

this seems more germane.

[stickdog99]

I think it is likely that Selvon Dubon would tell us that Omar Mateen has been misidentified as he saw the shooter at the club. But maybe he is an FBI plant, attempting to incriminate an innocent man. Personally I think there is overwhelming evidence that Mateen did the shooting.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/pulse-orlando-nightclub-shooting/os-survivor-nightclub-shooting-20160617-story.html

OK, at least that's one witness who says it was one guy shooting people like crazy immediately. That's the most compelling evidence I have seen to date that a lone gunman carried out this massacre. I still have to wonder why and how three cops, including two SWAT team members, were all outgunned by one guy. But I suppose he could have shot scores of people very quickly before holing up with hostages. Was Mateen wearing body armor? And do you have any other "overwhelming evidence" to share? I'd love to see it.