Some of the records show that victims called 911 as they heard and saw Omar Mateen shooting inside the Pulse nightclub.
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They reveal that the first call of “shots fired” at the gay club came in at 2:02 a.m., according to the Associated Press.
WESH-TV Orlando reports that “the media lawsuit contends city officials are wrongly withholding recordings of 911 calls and communications between gunman Omar Mateen and the Orlando Police Department”.
Many dispatches are terrifying snapshots of chaos and a fast-unfolding massacre: “Someone screaming help… still hearing gunshots… multiple people screaming“.
“My caller is no longer responding, just an open line with moaning”, Desk7 says a minute later.
A caller described Mateen as wearing a grey shirt and brown pants.
At 2:40, Desk2 is advising all units that “Third party with shooter saying he pledges to the Islamic State”.
Numerous people inside the club were hiding in closets, an office, or the dressing room. Ten people were hiding inside a handicap bathroom stall.
A preliminary hearing will lay out ground rules for another hearing later this week on the fight between media companies and the city of Orlando over whether 911 calls from the mass shooting at a Florida nightclub can be made public. One caller said there was a second gunman and another thought Mateen had a bomb.
“Subj is saying that he is a terrorist and has several bombs strapped to him in the downstairs female restroom”, a log from 2:54 a.m. says. At 5:17 a.m., the log notes, “bad guy down”.
The inspection reports were part of 269 pages of public records related to the shooting that were released Tuesday.
The other records that were released on Tuesday included text messages sent between the Orlando police chief, fire chief and fire marshal; police and fire dispatch records; planning and permitting records; and previous history of code enforcement inspections at Pulse.
A follow-up visit was planned but hadn’t yet been assigned, so it wasn’t known if the problem was fixed.
Further emails released on Tuesday reveal that cops were concerned an exit door was blocked or broken, but a deeper dive into those documents indicates that the club actually had more functioning exits than were required for its size.
But the Orlando Fire Department said that a May 21 inspection only found that a back-up battery was needed for the electronic exit sign.
“We have no indication that exits were blocked”, fire department spokeswoman Ashley Papagni said in a statement.
Although one of the exits was inoperable, the club had twice the number of exits required to accommodate its maximum occupancy of 300 patrons.
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Among the documents released today were incident narratives from OPD of the 911 calls made from the nightclub and from anxious parents of people inside. SWAT members killed Mateen June 12 in a shootout following a 3-hour hostage situation.
