“We are saying we are apologizing for the whole incident,’’ the dad said, referring to his family. In front of my son they are doing that.’ And then we were in the men’s bathroom, and men were kissing each other.” “They were kissing each other and touching each other, and he said, ‘Look at that. And he saw two men kissing each other in front of his wife and kid and he got very angry,” he told the network. “We were in downtown Miami, Bayside, people were playing music. Gunfire exchanged at #pulse nightclub hostage situation in #Orlando. Mateen’s father told NBC that his son recently got “very angry” at the sight of men kissing each other in Miami and said his anti-gay fury might have triggered the massacre. Mateen was briefly married in 2009, and three FBI agents were spotted visiting his former father-in-law’s home in Edison, NJ. Hopper said there were also “no credible threats” regarding possible related attacks. It appeared that Mateen acted as a lone wolf, with Tampa FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge Ronald Hopper saying, “At this time, we do not have a second suspect that we are looking for.” Nine others died after being rushed to the hospital, he said. The death toll from Mateen’s massacre included 39 people who were fatally shot inside and two outside, Dyer said.
#ORLANDO FLORIDA GAY BAR SHOOTING TV#
President Obama called the attack “especially heartbreaking” and ordered White House flags flown at half-staff in memory of the victims.“This guy wanted to kill all of us,” Jeannette McCoy, 37, told The Post. Survivors described desperately hiding from the killer and jumping out of his way as he barreled toward them, gunning down victims.One probe involved contact that Mateen had with a fellow Floridian who became the first American suicide bomber to strike in Syria. The FBI said Mateen had twice been investigated for possible terror ties but that the results were inconclusive.Three US officials said no evidence linking the massacre to any terror group had yet been uncovered. ISIS claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement released by its Amaq news agency, saying the onslaught “was carried out by an Islamic State fighter,” Reuters reported. The madman held cops at bay for about three hours, until authorities used an armored vehicle to burst through the wall of another room that held about 15 to 25 people, Dyer said.Ī furious gunfight with 11 SWAT team members followed, during which Mateen was killed and a cop was saved from death when a shot struck his Kevlar helmet. Mateen barricaded himself in a room with about five to eight hostages, said Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer. Mateen, who worked as a security officer, was armed with an AR-15-style assault rifle and a pistol that the feds say he bought “in the past few days” when he started spraying bullets at about 350 patrons inside the Pulse dancehall around 2 a.m., officials said.Īn off-duty cop working as a security guard at the club returned fire, prompting Mateen to retreat further into the hotspot and take hostages, officials said. Omar Mateen, 29, called 911 and pledged his allegiance to ISIS and mentioned the Boston Marathon bombings early on in his bloodbath, according to reports. Suspected gay nightclub mass shooter Omar Mateen.
A homophobic ISIS sympathizer killed at least 50 people and wounded 53 others during a rampage at a gay nightclub in Florida early Sunday - marking the country’s deadliest mass shooting.