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Derechos | Equipo Nizkor
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20Jun16
Orlando Police Defend Actions as Clock Ticked in Massacre
Some details of the Orlando nightclub massacre are known to the minute: The first reports of gunfire came at 2:02 a.m. The gunman made a 911 call at 2:35 a.m., in which he pledged allegiance to the Islamic State. By 5:15 a.m., as hostages fled to safety, he lay dead or mortally wounded in a scene of unimaginable carnage.
Many questions persist about those three hours at the blood-drenched Pulse nightclub, and about how law enforcement handled the crisis on June 12. Orlando police officials have been peppered with queries from the public, survivors and the news media about whether they should have confronted the gunman sooner and whether any of the victims were shot by the police.
The city's police chief, John Mina, and other officials have repeatedly defended the delay in storming a bathroom where the gunman had taken hostages, and have deflected questions about whose bullets did what damage. On Monday, Chief Mina answered in a way that left open the possibility that some of the 49 people killed and 53 wounded were, in fact, hit by police gunfire.
"That's part of the investigation, but here's what I will tell you: Those killings are on the suspect," he said.
The chief spoke at a news conference with local and federal law enforcement officials outside the club to release a partial transcript of the gunman's conversations with the police during the siege, and to fill a few gaps in the official account of what took place. But the news conference seemed intended just as much to reject criticism of the police.
"I think there was this misconception that we didn't do anything for three hours, and that's absolutely not true," the chief said. He said the police had used the time to rescue patrons, get the lay of the building, put resources into place, determine where people were hiding and talk to the gunman.
Federal law enforcement officials at Monday's news conference offered vigorous praise of local agencies and their personnel. "They should not be second-guessed," said A. Lee Bentley III, the United States attorney for the Middle District of Florida. "Lives were saved because of their heroic work."
The killer, Omar Mateen, spoke with the authorities four times for a total of 29 minutes while holding hostages in a bathroom where victims lay bleeding. The transcript released by the F.B.I. covered only the first, brief call and fragments of the last call; the substance of his statements was made public last week but not the precise language.
In the first call, to 911 at 2:35 a.m., which lasted less than a minute, Mr. Mateen, 29, took responsibility for the shootings "in the name of God the merciful," and declared allegiance to the Islamic State and its leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. He demanded that the United States halt its bombing in Syria and Iraq.
He talked with a police negotiator at 2:48 for nine minutes, at 3:03 for 16 minutes and at 3:24 for three minutes. In the last call, he claimed — falsely, it turned out — to have explosives.
"There is some vehicle outside that has some bombs, just to let you know," he said. "You people are gonna get it, and I'm gonna ignite it if they try to do anything stupid." He said he had a vest of the kind "used in France," an apparent reference to explosive vests used by Islamic State attackers in Paris in November.
"While the killer made these murderous statements, he did so in a chilling, calm and deliberate manner," said Ronald Hopper, an assistant special agent in charge of the F.B.I.'s office in Tampa, Fla.
The F.B.I. at first released a transcript redacted to avoid mentioning the Islamic State and Mr. Baghdadi by name, which officials described as an effort not to play into the group's propaganda. That drew ridicule in the news media and from some Republicans, led by Speaker Paul D. Ryan, who suggested the Obama administration was playing down the attacker's radical Islamist motivation.
Hours later, the F.B.I. released what it said was an unedited transcript of the first 911 call, with the names.
The material released does not include any mention of a hatred of gays, which the bureau has been investigating as a possible motive.
Federal officials declined to release transcripts of all the calls, or of 911 calls made by people trapped inside Pulse, or audio recordings of any of them.
The first calls about a shooting came at 2:02 a.m., according to a timeline released by the F.B.I. The timeline did not say whether Mr. Mateen exchanged gunfire with an off-duty officer working security, as some officials have said.
At 2:04, more officers arrived, and at 2:08, officers from multiple agencies entered the club, and they and Mr. Mateen opened fire.
"That engagement and that initial entry caused him to stop shooting, retreat, and barricade himself into a bathroom," Chief Mina said.
Officials did not say how many officers fired in that gun battle, or how many rounds. The Orange County medical examiner, Dr. Joshua D. Stephany, said in an interview that autopsies of victims had not made any determination about who fired the fatal shots.
In an interview, the SWAT commander, Mark Canty, said he doubted any fatalities resulted from police bullets. Members of his team, he said, "are trained to kind of identify the targets."
But it is not clear whether any officers in that gunfight were from the SWAT team, and it is clear that some were not. The full team was not called to the scene until 2:18.
From the time Mr. Mateen retreated to the bathroom, Chief Mina said, "There was no shooting in that three-hour period until the commencement of the hostage-rescue operation."
Survivors who were in that bathroom have said Mr. Mateen had sprayed it with gunfire, killing and injuring several people, but their accounts did not make clear whether that happened before or after the firefight with the police. Former hostages agreed that a long period without shooting followed, though some have said Mr. Mateen shot a few more people at the end of the siege, after officers began to storm the building.
Officials here have insisted that the police followed protocol in not trying to force a showdown that could have claimed more lives. In fact, Mayor Buddy Dyer said the department's practices called for officers to retreat 1,000 feet once there was a threat of explosives, but they did not.
Chief Mina said that throughout the standoff, officers went into the club, putting themselves in danger to rescue people. Some survivors have told stories to that effect; Angel Colon, tearfully told of being unable to walk after having been shot several times, and expressed gratitude to an officer who pulled him to safety.
But others who escaped with their lives have not been so complimentary. Norman Caisano said that after hiding and then making his way toward the club entrance, "I poked my head out, and the police actually shot at me."
"I started crying and yelling, 'I'm a victim, I'm a victim, please, I'm hurt, I'm injured, I've been shot twice,' " he said.
Jeannette McCoy, 37, who escaped early on, was furious at the caution of the police, yelling at them to end the matter. "I wanted this guy dead," she said, but "they gave him so much time."
At 4:21 a.m., officers pulled an air-conditioner out of a wall, creating an escape route for people hiding in one room of the club. Eight minutes later, according to the F.B.I. timeline, some people who been inside had told the police that the gunman had said he was going to put explosive vests on four hostages within 15 minutes.
That prompted the decision to storm the club, officials have said. While the gunman and his hostages were in one bathroom, officials decided to breach the building's outer wall at another bathroom nearby, to free people trapped there, and make a path in.
A team from the Orange County Sheriff's Office placed explosives on the wall. Those were detonated at 5:02 a.m., but did not break all the way through, so officers used an armored vehicle to punch through the wall. But officials have said their aim was off, and they had to try multiple times to find the right spot for a hole. At 5:14 a.m., there were gunshots, as officers traded fire with Mr. Mateen. At 5:15, word came across the radio: the suspect was down.
The F.B.I. said it had collected more than 600 pieces of evidence and conducted more than 500 interviews. One of those interviewed, Mohammad Malik, said that Mr. Mateen, a longtime friend, told him two years ago that he had listened to recordings of Anwar al-Awlaki, the radical American-born cleric who was killed in an American drone strike in Yemen. Mr. Malik told a reporter that he told the F.B.I. at the time, and the bureau investigated but did not bring charges. The F.B.I. has said it looked into Mr. Mateen in 2014.
Investigators continue to believe that Mr. Mateen acted on his own, inspired by extremist groups but not directly in contact with them. They are still looking into what his wife knew, to determine whether she should face charges.
Agent Hopper appealed for the public's patience with a case so complex that agents were still combing the crime scene.
"This investigation is one week and one day old," he said, "and it may last months, and even years."
[Source: By Richard Pérez-Peña, Frances Robles and Eric Lichtblau, International New York Times, 20Jun16]
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 | This document has been published on 22Jun16 by the Equipo Nizkor and Derechos Human Rights. In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. |