The 911 call and dozens of other calls made by civilians to authorities the morning of the shooting were released after a lawsuit from media groups claiming that they were necessary to evaluate police response to the massacre.
Advertisement
A half hour into the worst mass shooting in modern US history, the gunman called a 911 operator and claimed responsibility for the massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando.
But Mateen only responded by saying his “name is Islamic soldier”. The negotiator tries to tell Mateen they need to stay in contact.
Mateen repeatedly demanded that the airstrikes in Syria and Afghanistan stop. “They are killing too many children; they are killing too many women. OK?”
“In one of the transcripts, Mateen tells negotiators, “. The dispatcher explains that the police negotiators are calling from a fire department communications center, where it’s quieter.
When Mateen did talk, he focused his attention on airstrikes from the USA and Russian Federation on the Middle East, particularly Syria.
According to the transcript, Mateen told the negotiator he had a vest that was like the one used in the bombings in France.
Mateen tells the negotiator, “They need to stop killing people”. After Mateen drops the first call, the negotiator calls him back several times, but Mateen stops talking shortly after he answers.
When the dispatcher asks Mateen his name, he says “My name is I pledge of allegiance to (unidentifiable name) of the Islamic State”. But the caller replied, “No”. ” He told the negotiator that, because it was the last month of Ramadan, he had spent his day fasting and praying before coming to Pulse”. The transcripts show long pauses where he does not respond at all.
Later in the call Mateen refers to his “homeboy” Tamerlan Tsarnaev, one of the 2013 Boston Marathon bombers, and calls him a “soldier of God”.
More than half of the calls in the cache were made just as the shooting had begun.
“What’s going on is that I feel the pain of the people getting killed in Syria and Iraq and all over the Muslim (unidentified word)”, Mateen said. When the dispatcher asked her if she saw who was shooting, the caller said no, and that she was trying to avoid getting injured.
Mateen said, “Yo, the air strike that killed Abu Waheeb a few weeks ago”. He threatened to ignite vehicle bombs he said could “take out a whole city block nearly”.
Advertisement
When pressed for details, he claimed “If you bring the bomb dog they are not going to smell s**t”. “I want to let you know I’m in Orlando and I did the shooting”.
