The attack at Pulse was the deadliest mass shooting in American history for just a little over a year. And in all the mayhem and trauma, he'd fallen back on his military training. SIMON: Orlando Torres later learned the officer that called him soldier had served overseas. So they grabbed my right arm and pulled me up from the floor. TORRES: They were, like, trying to motivate me by saying, soldier, soldier, push yourself up. SIMON: Orlando Torres described the events of that night to our member station in Orlando, WMFE, including the moment that officers made it into the restroom and found him on the floor, stricken and unmoving with fear. I just let him touch me and acted like if I was dead. I expected my whole back to be riddled with bullets. And, of course, my heart rate started beating.
I felt them touching my right rear pants pocket. TORRES: When he had shot and somebody crawled underneath, knocked me and my friend off the toilet bowl, he walked around. Orlando Torres survived by hiding in a bathroom. SIMON: Forty-nine people were murdered that night. ORLANDO TORRES: My name is Orlando Torres, and I'm one of the Pulse nightclub survivors of the shooting of June 12, 2016. Sunday morning when a gunman opened fire on this date in Orlando, Fla. Lucie in eastern Florida, where he had worked as a contracted security guard.Saturday barely ended. One of the SWAT officers was hit, but the bullet struck his helmet, saving his life.Įarlier during the standoff, Mateen told police he was trying to send a message against US airstrikes in Iraq and Syria and compared himself to other American terrorists.īorn and raised in New York, Mateen had recently moved with his family to Port St. Over the next hours, police and first responders continued to pull people out of the club as Mateen hid.Īt 5:15 a.m., SWAT officers deployed two flash bang grenades and used an armored vehicle to breach the north bathroom wall, forcing Mateen out of the bathroom and into the hallway, where he fired at other SWAT officers, who returned fire, killing him. According to Mina’s presentation, 15 people were taken to Orlando Health in marked police cars and pickup trucks.
The fire department was so overwhelmed with patients that officers had to use an unmarked Ford F-150 as a makeshift ambulance.
About a minute later, they were joined by another officer who arrived at the scene in a Ford F-150 pickup truck. Gruler was able to fire several rounds at Mateen, who was standing just inside the double doors of the club.Īnother police officer arrived 1 minute and 20 seconds later to back up Gruler. Gruler called for backup and people immediately started fleeing in multiple directions, according to the report. Orlando Police Detective Adam Gruler was the first officer to fire at the shooter, Omar Mateen, who entered the club with a military-style rifle and started rapidly shooting at people on the main dance floor. The report, published Friday by WKMG-TV, provides a minute-by-minute account of law enforcement's response that night. The details of the June 12, 2016, shooting, which left 49 dead and 58 injured, were part of a presentation Orlando Police Chief John Mina has given to outside police groups. A new report on the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history has revealed new details of what first-responders encountered when they arrived at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, including a dance floor covered with so many bodies that one officer shouted out: "If you’re alive, raise your hand."
0 kommentar(er)
