Orlando nightclub shooting

On , 2016, Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old man, killed 49 people and wounded 53 more in a mass shooting at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, United States. Orlando Police officers shot and killed him after a three-hour standoff.

In a 9-1-1 call made shortly after the shooting began, Mateen swore allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and said the U.S. killing of Abu Waheeb in Iraq the previous month "triggered" the shooting. He later told a negotiator he was "out here right now" because of the American-led interventions in Iraq and in Syria and that the negotiator should tell the United States to stop the bombing. The incident was deemed a terrorist attack by FBI investigators.

Pulse was hosting a "Latin Night", and most of the victims were Latino. It is the deadliest incident in the history of violence against LGBT people in the United States, and was the deadliest mass shooting by a single gunman in U.S. history until the 2017 Las Vegas shooting.

Shooting

First shots and hostage situation

On , 2016, Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, was hosting "Latin Night", a weekly Saturday night event drawing a primarily Latino crowd. RuPaul’s Drag Race contestant and drag queen Kenya Michaels is recorded to have been performing right as the shooting began (Michaels survived the shooting). About 320 people were still inside the club, which was serving last call drinks at around on . At around the same time, Omar Mateen arrived at the club via rental van, parking it in the parking lot of a neighboring car shop. He got out and walked toward the building armed with a SIG Sauer MCX semi-automatic rifle and a 9mm Glock 17 semi-automatic pistol. He was wearing a green, blue, and white plaid dress shirt, a white T-shirt underneath, and tan cargo pants. At , Mateen bypassed Officer Adam Gruler, a uniformed off-duty Orlando Police Department (OPD) officer working extra duty as a security guard, entered the building through its southern entrance, and began shooting patrons. Dozens were killed or severely injured inside the crowded nightclub, either directly or by ricochets.

Gruler took cover and called in a signal for assistance. He told a post-incident Police Foundation assessment team that he had immediately recognized that his handgun would be severely disadvantaged against the rifle Mateen was using. When he witnessed Mateen shooting two patrons attempting to escape through an emergency exit, Gruler fired shots at him. In response, Mateen withdrew back into the nightclub and continued shooting victims as he traversed through the building, sometimes firing into bodies without checking whether they were already dead. When additional officers arrived at the nightclub beginning at 2:04 a.m., Gruler shouted " he gunmans in the patio!" and resumed firing at Mateen a minute later. Two officers joined Gruler in engaging Mateen, who then retreated farther into the nightclub and "began a 'hostage situation'" in one of the bathrooms. In less than five minutes, Mateen had fired approximately 200 rounds, pausing only to reload.

During the shooting, some of the people trapped inside the club sought help by calling or sending text messages to friends and relatives. Initially, some of them thought the gunshots were firecrackers or part of the music. Imran Yousuf, a recently discharged Marine Corps veteran working as a nightclub bouncer immediately recognized the sounds as gunfire, which he described as "high caliber", and jumped over a locked door behind which dozens of people were hidden and paralyzed by fear, then opened a latched door behind them, allowing approximately 70 people to escape. Many described a scene of panic and confusion caused by the loud music and darkness. One person shielded herself by hiding inside a bathroom and covering herself with bodies. A bartender said she took cover beneath the glass bar. At least one patron tried to help those who were hit. According to a man trapped inside a bathroom with fifteen other patrons, Mateen fired sixteen times into the bathroom, through the closed door, killing at least two and wounding several others.

According to one of the hostages, Mateen entered a bathroom in the nightclub's northwest side and opened fire on the people hiding there, wounding several. The hostage, who had taken cover inside a stall with others, was injured by two bullets and struck with flying pieces of a wall hit by stray bullets. Shortly after entering the women's restroom, Mateen's rifle jammed. He then discarded the rifle and switched to his Glock 17 pistol. Two survivors quoted Mateen as saying, "I don't have a problem with black people", and that he "wouldn't stop his assault until America stopped bombing his country". Other survivors heard Mateen claim he had explosives as well as snipers stationed around the club.

Patrons trapped inside called or texted 9-1-1 to warn of the possible presence of explosives.

Emergency response

In the next 45 minutes, about 100 officers from the OPD and the Orange County Sheriff's Office were dispatched to the scene. Among the earliest first responders to arrive were a firefighter crew from and two supporting firefighter paramedics from . Eighty fire and emergency medical services personnel from the Orlando Fire Department were deployed during the entire incident.

At , several minutes after the gunfire began, the club posted on its Facebook page, "Everyone get out of pulse and keep running." At , Mateen placed a 9-1-1 call, during which he mentioned the Boston Marathon bombers—Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev—as his "homeboys" and made a reference to Moner Mohammad Abu Salha, an American citizen who died in a suicide bombing in Syria in 2014. Mateen said he was inspired by Abu Salha's death for the Al-Nusra Front targeting Syrian government troops (a mutual enemy of the two Salafist groups, despite their history of violence with each other), and swore allegiance to ISIS leader al-Baghdadi. The FBI said that Mateen and Abu Salha had attended the same mosque and knew each other "casually". Mateen made two other 9-1-1 calls during the shooting. Numerous 9-1-1 calls were made by the patrons inside the nightclub around this time.

After the initial rounds of gunfire between Mateen and Gruler, six officers shot out a large glass window and followed the sound of shooting to the bathroom area. When Mateen stuck his head out from one of the bathrooms, at least two officers shot at him. After the gunfire stopped, they were ordered to hold position instead of storming the bathroom, according to one of the officers. After about 15 to 20 minutes, SWAT arrived and had the officers withdraw as the officers were "not really in tactical gear". SWAT then took over the operation. When asked why the officers didn't proceed to the bathroom and engage Mateen, Orlando Police Chief John Mina said it was because Mateen "went from an active shooter to a barricaded gunman" and had hostages. He also noted, "If he had continued shooting, our officers would have went in there." At that time, the last shot by Mateen was fired between and

Rescues of people trapped inside the nightclub commenced and continued throughout the night. Because so many people were lying on the dance floor, one rescuing officer demanded, "If you're alive, raise your hand." By , police had managed to extract nearly all of the injured from the nightclub. Those who remained included the hostages held by Mateen in the bathroom, as well as a dozen people who were hiding inside dressing rooms.

Phone calls and negotiations

At , Mateen called News 13 of Orlando and said, "I'm the shooter. It's me. I am the shooter." He then said he was carrying out the shooting on the behalf of ISIS and began speaking rapidly in Arabic. Mateen also said the shooting was "triggered" by a U.S.-led bombing strike in Iraq that killed Abu Wahib, an ISIS military commander, on .

A crisis negotiator was present as Mateen was held up inside and holding hostages. Officers initially believed he was armed with a "suspicious device" that posed a threat, but it was later revealed to be a battery that fell out of an exit sign or smoke detector.

Police hostage negotiators spoke with Mateen by telephone three times between and He claimed during one of the calls that he had bombs strapped to his body. He also claimed that he "had a vehicle in the parking lot with enough explosives to take out city blocks." At , the OPD publicly announced the shooting and confirmed multiple injuries. At , eight of the hostages escaped after police had removed an air conditioning unit from an exterior wall. At approximately , Mateen told negotiators that he planned to strap explosive vests, similar to those used in the November 2015 Paris attacks, to four hostages, strategically place them in different corners of the building, and detonate them in 15 minutes. OPD officers then decided to end negotiations and prepared to blow their way in.

At around , Mateen's wife—after receiving a call from her mother at approximately asking where her husband was—sent a text message to Mateen asking where he was. Mateen texted back asking her if she had seen the news. After she replied, "No?", Mateen responded, "I love you, babe." According to one source, she texted him back at one point saying that she loved him. She also called him several times during the standoff, but he did not answer. She found out about what was happening at after the police told her to come out of her house with her hands up.

A survivor of the shooting recalled Mateen saying he wanted the United States to "stop bombing his country". The FBI said Mateen "told a negotiator to tell America to stop bombing Syria and Iraq and that was why he was 'out here right now'". During the siege, Mateen made Internet searches on the shooting, while police dispatched a tactical robot to discreetly enter the restroom and allow them to communicate with hostages via two-way audio.

Rescue and resolution

The FBI reported that no shots were heard between the time Mateen stopped exchanging gunfire with the first responders and , when Orlando police began breaching the building's wall. Just before the breach, Mateen entered a women's bathroom where the hostages were hiding and opened fire, killing a man who sacrificed his life to save the woman behind him and at least one other, according to witnesses.

At , fourteen SWAT officers—after failing to blow open a big enough hole in the bathroom's exterior wall using a bomb due to the wall's structure—successfully breached the building when a policeman drove a BearCat armored vehicle through a wall in the northern bathroom. They then used two flashbangs to distract Mateen, and shot at him. The breach drew Mateen out into the hallway, and at , he engaged the officers. He was shot eight times and killed in the resulting shootout, which involved at least eleven officers who fired about 150 bullets. He was reported "down" at

At , the police said a bomb squad had set off a controlled explosion. At , the Orlando police posted on Twitter, "Pulse Shooting: The shooter inside the club is dead." Thirty hostages were freed during the police operation. The survivors were searched by police for guns and explosives.

Casualties

Fifty people died in the incident, including Mateen, and another 58 were injured, 53 by gunfire and five by other causes. Some survivors were critically injured.

Fatalities

Thirty-nine, including Mateen, were pronounced dead at the scene, and eleven at local hospitals. Of the thirty-eight victims to die at the scene, twenty died on the stage area and dance floor, nine in the nightclub's northern bathroom, four in the southern bathroom, three on the stage, one at the front lobby, and one out on a patio. At least five of the dead were not killed during the initial volley of gunfire by Mateen, but during the hostage situation in the bathroom.

Pulse was hosting Latin Night; over 90% of the victims were of Hispanic background, and half of those were of Puerto Rican descent. Four Dominicans and three Mexican citizens were also among the dead. An off-duty United States Army Reserve captain at the club who was not in uniform was also killed.

The attack is the second-deadliest mass shooting by a single shooter in United States history, behind the 2017 Las Vegas shooting; prior to the Las Vegas shooting, the Pulse shooting had been the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history. It is also the deadliest incident of violence against lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender (LGBT) people in the history of the United States—surpassing the 1973 UpStairs Lounge arson attack—and the deadliest terrorist attack in the United States since the September 11 attacks in 2001.

The names and ages of the victims killed were confirmed by the City of Orlando after their next of kin had been notified:

* Stanley Almodovar III, 23
* Amanda Alvear, 25
* Oscar A. Aracena-Montero, 26
* Rodolfo Ayala-Ayala, 33
* Alejandro Barrios Martinez, 21
* Martin Benitez Torres, 33
* Antonio D. Brown, 30
* Darryl R. Burt II, 29
* Jonathan A. Camuy Vega, 24
* Angel L. Candelario-Padro, 28
* Simon A. Carrillo Fernandez, 31
* Juan Chavez-Martinez, 25
* Luis D. Conde, 39
* Cory J. Connell, 21
* Tevin E. Crosby, 25
* Franky J. Dejesus Velazquez, 50
* Deonka D. Drayton, 32
* Mercedez M. Flores, 26
* Peter O. Gonzalez-Cruz, 22
* Juan R. Guerrero, 22
* Paul T. Henry, 41
* Frank Hernandez, 27
* Miguel A. Honorato, 30
* Javier Jorge-Reyes, 40
* Jason B. Josaphat, 19
* Eddie J. Justice, 30
* Anthony L. Laureano Disla, 25
* Christopher A. Leinonen, 32
* Brenda L. Marquez McCool, 49
* Jean C. Mendez Perez, 35
* Akyra Monet Murray, 18
* Kimberly Morris, 37
* Jean C. Nieves Rodriguez, 27
* Luis O. Ocasio-Capo, 20
* Geraldo A. Ortiz-Jimenez, 25
* Eric Ivan Ortiz-Rivera, 36
* Joel Rayon Paniagua, 32
* Enrique L. Rios Jr., 25
* Juan P. Rivera Velazquez, 37
* Yilmary Rodriguez Solivan, 24
* Christopher J. Sanfeliz, 24
* Xavier Emmanuel Serrano Rosado, 35
* Gilberto Ramon Silva Menendez, 25
* Edward Sotomayor Jr., 34
* Shane E. Tomlinson, 33
* Leroy Valentin Fernandez, 25
* Luis S. Vielma, 22
* Luis Daniel Wilson-Leon, 37
* Jerald A. Wright, 31

Autopsies of the 49 dead were completed by the Orange County Medical Examiner's Office by , and their results were released in early August. According to the autopsy reports, many of the victims were shot multiple times in the front or side, and from a short distance. More than a third were shot in the head, and most had multiple bullet wounds and were likely shot more than away. In total, there were over 200 gunshot wounds.

Injuries

Many of the injured underwent surgery. Most of them—44 people—were taken to the Orlando Regional Medical Center (ORMC), the primary regional trauma center three blocks away; twelve others went to Florida Hospital Orlando. Nine of ORMC's patients died there, and by , 27 remained hospitalized, with six in critical condition. ORMC performed surgeries on 76 patients. The last of the injured was discharged from ORMC on , nearly three months after the shooting.

Three Colombians and two Canadians were among the injured. Additionally, a responding SWAT officer received a minor head injury when a bullet hit his Kevlar helmet.

Perpetrator

The gunman was identified as 29-year-old Omar Mateen, an American born in New Hyde Park, New York. His parents were Afghan, and he was raised Muslim. At the time of the shooting, he lived in an apartment complex in Fort Pierce, Florida, from the Pulse nightclub in Orlando.

Mateen's body was buried in the Muslim Cemetery of South Florida, near Hialeah Gardens.

Personal life

From October 2006 until April 2007, Mateen trained to be a prison guard for the Florida Department of Corrections. As a probationary employee, he received an "administrative termination (not involving misconduct)" upon a warden's recommendation after Mateen joked about bringing a gun to school. Mateen unsuccessfully pursued a career in law enforcement, failing to become a Florida state trooper in 2011 and to gain admission to a police academy in 2015. According to a police academy classmate, Mateen threatened to shoot his classmates at a cookout in 2007 "after his hamburger touched pork" in violation of Islamic dietary laws. Other witnesses said that they saw Mateen drink alcohol and even "get drunk".

Since 2007, he had been a security guard for G4S Secure Solutions. The company said two screenings—one conducted upon hiring and the other in 2013—had raised no red flags. Mateen held an active statewide firearms license and an active security officer license, had passed a psychological test, and had no criminal record.

After the shooting, the psychologist who reportedly evaluated and cleared Mateen for his firearms license in 2007 by G4S records denied ever meeting him or having lived in Florida at the time, and said she had stopped her practice in Florida since January 2006. G4S admitted Mateen's form had a "clerical error" and clarified that he had instead been cleared by another psychologist from the same firm that bought the wrongly named doctor's practice. This doctor had not interviewed Mateen, but evaluated the results of a standard test used in the screening he undertook before being hired. G4S was subsequently fined for lapses in its psychological testing program (see below).

In 2009, Mateen married his first wife, who left him after a few months; the couple's divorce became final in 2011. Following the nightclub attack, she said Mateen was "mentally unstable and mentally ill" and "obviously disturbed, deeply, and traumatized", was often physically abusive, and had a history of using steroids. His autopsy revealed signs of long-term and habitual steroid use, so more toxicology tests were ordered for confirmation. As of , 2016, federal investigators were uncertain whether Mateen's steroid use was a factor in the attack.

At the time of the shooting, Mateen was married to his second wife and had a young son.

Motive

In the hours before the shooting, Mateen used several Facebook accounts to write posts vowing vengeance for American airstrikes in Iraq and Syria and to search for content related to terrorism. These posts, since deleted, were recovered and included in an open letter by Senate Homeland Security Chairman Ron Johnson to Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg seeking further information about Mateen's use of the site.

During the shooting, Mateen made a 9-1-1 call claiming it was an act of retaliation for the airstrike killing of, among others, ISIS militant Abu Waheeb in the previous month. He told the negotiator to tell America to stop the bombing.

Despite numerous anonymous and named reports of LGBTQ connections, the FBI was unable to verify any claims that Mateen was homosexual or frequented gay bars or even knew the Pulse nightclub was a gay bar. The FBI investigation found the witnesses claiming Mateen's homosexuality were mistaken or refused to go on the record, and doubts that Mateen was gay. Law enforcement sources said the FBI found no photographs, text messages, smartphone apps, pornography, or cell tower location data to suggest Mateen lived a gay life, closeted or otherwise.

On the day of the shooting, Mateen's father, Mir Seddique Mateen, said that he had seen his son get angry after seeing a gay couple kiss in front of his family at the Bayside Marketplace in Miami months prior to the shooting, which he suggested might have been a motivating factor. Two days later, after his son's sexual orientation became a subject of speculation, Mateen's father said he did not believe his son was homosexual. Mateen's ex-wife, however, claimed that his father called him gay while in her presence. Speaking on her behalf, her current fiancé said that she, his family, and others believed he was gay, and that "the FBI asked her not to tell this to the American media".

During his wife's trial in March 2018, her defense revealed in a motion that Mateen had Googled "downtown Orlando nightclubs" and, after passing Disney Springs, traveled between Pulse and the Eve Orlando Nightclub before choosing to target Pulse. Trial witnesses said the decision to target Pulse was made at the last minute, and the defense's motion argued that this "strongly suggests that the attack on Pulse was not a result of a prior plan to attack a gay nightclub."

Aftermath

Security-camera video footage was recovered from the nightclub as part of the investigation, with a censored version later publicly released during the trial of Mateen's wife. Facebook activated its " Safety Check" feature in the Orlando area following the shooting, allowing users to mark themselves as "safe" to notify family and friends—the first use of the feature in the United States.

Following the shooting, many business venues in the United States, such as shopping malls, movie theaters, bars, and concert halls, reexamined their security procedures. Also, police forces across the country announced plans to increase security at LGBT landmarks such as the Stonewall Inn and at Pride Month events including pride parades.

Two former SWAT members, one an active-shooter tactics expert and trainer, expressed misgivings about the three-hour delay in breaching the nightclub, citing the lesson learned from other mass shootings that officers can minimize casualties only by entering a shooting location expeditiously, even if it means putting themselves at great risk.

Seddique Mateen released a Dari language video statement via Facebook on to speak about his son's actions.

A broadcast from the Iraqi ISIS radio station al-Bayan said Mateen was "one of the soldiers of the caliphate in America", without indicating any foreknowledge of the shooting.

On , the Florida Department of Agriculture and Consumer Services fined G4S Secure Solutions $151,400 for providing inaccurate psychological testing information on more than 1,500 forms over a ten-year period, which allowed employees to carry firearms. Mateen's form was among those investigated.

On , it was reported that the Orlando Police Department was upgrading its equipment for officers following the shooting, since officers at the nightclub were not well-equipped for the event and therefore endangered. The upgraded equipment included ballistic helmets and heavier ballistic vests.

Following the shooting and a vehicle-ramming attack and mass stabbing at Ohio State University in Columbus, Ohio, a new federal initiative was launched, partially in response to at least one victim bleeding to death inside Pulse during the shooting. The initiative was designed to train people working at schools and other public places on how to treat injuries before paramedics arrive at the scene. Doctors have emphasized the importance for school faculty members to stay calm and assess injuries, but also discouraged the use of more invasive emergency procedures such as removing a bullet.

Victim assistance efforts

The FBI's Office of Victim Assistance (OVA) provided "information, assistance services, and resources" to the victims and witnesses of the shooting that, depending on their case-by-case eligibility, may have consisted of "special funding to provide emergency assistance, crime victim compensation, and counseling". The OVA, through its Victim Assistance Rapid Deployment Team and Crisis Response Canines, also provided help to responders of the shooting in the days following .

Immediately after the shooting, many people lined up to donate blood at local blood donation centers and bloodmobile locations when OneBlood, a regional blood donation agency, urged people to donate. The surge in blood donations and the fact that the shooting targeted a gay nightclub spotlighted the Food and Drug Administration's controversial federal policy that forbids men who had sex with men in the past year from donating blood. Despite expressions of frustration and disapproval by a number of gay and bisexual men, and LGBT activists across the country and a group of Democratic lawmakers urging the ban to be lifted, the FDA stated on that it had no plans to change the regulation and will reevaluate its policies "as new scientific information becomes available".

A victims' assistance center, Orlando Family Assistance Center, was opened on inside Camping World Stadium by the City of Orlando. During the eight days it was open, it provided help to 956 people from 298 families. Those remaining were then directed to the newly opened Orlando United Assistance Center jointly set up by the City and Orange County, which, according to the mayor of Orlando, "will stay open as long as there is a need".

The two hospitals that treated Pulse victims, Orlando Regional Medical Center and Florida Hospital, announced in late August that they will not be billing the survivors or pursuing reimbursement.

The City of Orlando offered free plots and funeral services at the city-owned Greenwood Cemetery for those killed in the shooting.

Fundraising campaigns

Equality Florida, the state's largest LGBT rights group, started a fundraising page to aid the victims and their families, raising $767,000 in the first nine hours. As of , 2016, they have raised over $7.85 million online, a record for GoFundMe, with over 119,400 donors and an average of about $66 per donation.

Another fundraising campaign, OneOrlando, was established by Mayor Buddy Dyer. The Walt Disney Company and NBCUniversal, which operate the nearby Walt Disney World Resort and Universal Orlando Resort, respectively, each donated $1 million to the fund. As of , OneOrlando has raised $23 million, with a draft proposal to start payouts starting on a rolling basis in which the highest compensations will go to the families of the 49 people killed, followed by the 50 victims who were physically injured and hospitalized for one night or more. OneOrlando's fund administrator said that the draft has not decided whether to pay people who were held hostage but were not injured, and will take public feedback in two 90-minute hearings to be held on . A timeline of the draft proposal was released. On , its board of directors decided that the funds will only be dispersed to "the families of the dead, survivors who were hospitalized, survivors who sought outpatient medical treatment, and those who were present in the club when the shootings began but not physically injured", and that family members and survivors can start filing claims until the deadline. As of , OneOrlando paid out over $27.4 million to 299 recipients, according to officials, with six more claims worth an additional $2.1 million still being contested among family members of the slain victims.

IDW Publishing and DC Entertainment created ''Love Is Love'', a graphic novel sold to raise money for the victims. The novel became a New York Times best seller and more than $165,000 was raised. Through Equality Florida, the proceeds were donated to the OneOrlando Fund.

Release of transcripts and videos

A total of 603 calls to 9-1-1 were made by victims, family members and friends of victims, bystanders, and rescue workers during the entire shooting. On , two dozen news agencies sent a four-page letter to Orlando's city attorney jointly demanding the release of recordings that 9-1-1 callers made on the night of the shooting. The letter also contained a request for scanner and dispatch recordings. The Orlando police refused to release the recordings, citing an "ongoing investigation". , the FBI released a transcript of the first call by the shooter and a summary of three calls with police negotiators. On , the University of Central Florida Police Department released nine body camera videos of UCFPD officers who rushed to Pulse to help Orlando police officers during the incident.

On , the City of Orlando released a detailed 71-page document of OPD officers' accounts and responses to the shooting. Requests to release recordings of 9-1-1 calls, police radio transmissions, and the exchanges between law enforcement and Mateen were denied, citing disagreements over whether they fall under local or federal jurisdiction. The status on the authority over the recordings is pending a court ruling. On , the Orange County Sheriff's Office (OCSO) released video footage from a body camera worn by one of its deputies during the incident. On , the Orange County Fire Rescue released a recording of a 9-1-1 call made during the shooting. On , the OCSO released dozens of pages of documents detailing the deputies' individual accounts of their involvement in the shooting. On , the OCSO released the 9-1-1 calls it received during the shooting. Two days later, OPD and the city of Orlando released nine of their hundreds of 9-1-1 calls, which were all made by friends and relatives outside of Pulse during the incident; the rest are locked in a legal dispute between 24 media groups, OPD, and the city of Orlando.

On , the city of Orlando released 23 additional 9-1-1 calls made during the shooting. These included calls made from rescue workers advising preparedness for dozens of victims, a patron who escaped from Pulse with a friend who was shot, and the brother of a woman who was shot several times and trapped inside a bathroom in the nightclub. On , the City of Orlando released nearly 30 minutes of recordings of police negotiators talking with Mateen during the course of the shooting, after a judge with the Ninth Judicial Circuit Court of Florida ruled that these calls should be made public. A total of 232 other calls are still being withheld by the city.

On , the Orange County Sheriff's office released about two dozen videos of body camera footage of officers at the perimeter of the nightclub during the shooting. The footage, which was heavily censored, depicted officers conducting searches of bathrooms in the nightclub and tending to survivors. On , the City of Orlando released 36 police audio recordings made during the shooting, which record officers' attempts to contact Mateen, their remarks on his "serious, unruffled attitude", and their conversations about how to respond to the hostage situation. Also released that day was an additional 9-1-1 call made by a woman who made it out of the nightclub with her sister, who was shot. The next day, on , 21 additional 9-1-1 calls were released. This was followed by three additional hours of 9-1-1 calls released on . In many of these calls, people trapped inside bathrooms, kitchens, and an upstairs office were questioning why police had yet to enter the nightclub. Two days later, on , 107 pages of transcripts of more than 30 9-1-1 calls were released. These calls were made during the first ten minutes of the shooting, and had to be released in the form of transcripts after a judge deemed them too graphic to be released as audio recordings. According to a city spokesman, all 9-1-1 calls made during the shooting have now been released to the public.

Future of Pulse

On , 2016, the City of Orlando announced it would pay $4,518 to erect a new fence around the Pulse nightclub on . The fence will feature a commemorative screen-wrap with local artwork that would serve as a memorial to the victims and survivors of the shooting. It will also be smaller than the nightclub's previous fence, in order to allow for more efficient navigation by passers-by.

On the City of Orlando announced its plans to purchase the Pulse nightclub later that month for $2.25 million and turn the site into a memorial for the victims and survivors of the shooting. The announcement was met with praise from Orlando's LGBT community. However, the vote was postponed on , with the city explaining that "more time was needed to plan a future memorial", and that there was some discomfort from city officials over having to pay such an amount of money. The vote was expected to be held on or before . In December 2016, the owner declined to sell the nightclub to the city due to emotional attachment. The owner then created the onePULSE Foundation, and in May 2017, announced plans for a memorial site and museum slated to open in 2022.

Investigations

Classification

Officials have characterized the shooting as an act of terrorism. FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge Ron Hopper called the shooting a hate crime and an act of terrorism; and Jerry Demings, a sheriff from the Orange County Sheriff's Office, classified it as domestic terrorism. City of Orlando Chief of Police John W. Mina said Mateen seemed organized and well-prepared. On March 13, 2018, the time of Mateen's wife's trial for aiding the attack, the FBI had still declined to classify it as a hate crime, and the prosecution said it had never contemplated arguing Mateen had targeted gays. They instead only (unsuccessfully) argued she provided material support to a foreign terrorist organization.

On , FBI Director James Comey told reporters, "So far, we see no indication that this was a plot directed from outside the United States and we see no indication that he was part of any kind of network". He said the United States Intelligence Community was "highly confident that this killer was radicalized at least in part through the Internet", and that the investigation had found "strong indications of radicalization by this killer and of potential inspiration by foreign terrorist organizations". Several days after the shooting, the FBI announced on its website that it has become "the lead law enforcement agency responsible for investigating the shooting at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, on , 2016". The agency took the lead after the shooting was classified as a terrorist attack due to Mateen's pledge of allegiance to ISIS during the event.

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