XPost: alt.private.investigator, alt.sci.sociology, alt.america   
   XPost: alt.education   
   From: thanks.democrats@splcenter.org   
      
   Orlando Gunman Attacks Gay Nightclub, Leaving 50 Dead   
      
   ORLANDO, Fla. — A man who called 911 to proclaim allegiance to   
   the Islamic State terrorist group, and who had been investigated   
   in the past for possible terrorist ties, stormed a gay nightclub   
   here Sunday morning, wielding an assault rifle and a pistol, and   
   carried out the worst mass shooting in United States history,   
   leaving 50 people dead and 53 wounded.   
      
   The attacker, identified by law enforcement officials as Omar   
   Mateen, a 29-year-old who was born in New York, turned what had   
   been a celebratory night of dancing to salsa and merengue music   
   at the crowded Pulse nightclub into a panicked scene of   
   unimaginable slaughter, the floors slicked with blood, the dead   
   and the injured piled atop one another. Terrified people poured   
   onto the darkened streets of the surrounding neighborhood, some   
   carried wounded victims to safety, and police vehicles were   
   pressed into service as makeshift ambulances to rush people to   
   hospitals.   
      
   Joel Figueroa and his friends “were dancing by the hip-hop area   
   when I heard shots, bam, bam, bam,” he said, adding, “Everybody   
   was screaming and running toward the front door.”   
      
   Pulse, which calls itself “Orlando’s Latin Hotspot,” was holding   
   its weekly “Upscale Latin Saturdays” party. The shooting began   
   around 2 a.m., and some patrons thought at first that the   
   booming reports they heard were firecrackers or part of the   
   loud, thumping dance music.   
      
   Some people who were trapped inside hid where they could,   
   calling 911 or posting messages to social media, pleading for   
   help. The club posted a stark message on its Facebook page:   
   “Everyone get out of pulse and keep running.”   
      
   Hundreds of people gathered in the glare of flashing red lights   
   on the fringes of the law enforcement cordon around the   
   nightclub, and later at area hospitals, hoping desperately for   
   some word on the fates of their relatives and friends.   
      
   More than 12 hours after the attack, anguished relatives paced   
   between Orlando Regional Medical Center and a nearby hotel as   
   they waited for word. They were told that so many were gunned   
   down that victims would be tagged as anonymous until the   
   hospital was able to identify them.   
      
   “We are here suffering, knowing nothing,” said Baron Serrano,   
   whose brother, Juan Rivera, 36, had been celebrating a friend’s   
   birthday with his husband and was now unaccounted for. “I cannot   
   understand why they can’t tell me anything because my brother is   
   a very well-known person here in Orlando. He is a hairstylist,   
   and everybody knows him.”   
      
   A tally of victims whose relatives had been notified began   
   slowly building on a city website; by 6 p.m., it had six names.   
   Among them was Juan Ramon Guerrero, a 22-year-old man of   
   Dominican descent who had gone to the club with his boyfriend,   
   Christopher Leinonen, who goes by the name Drew, because they   
   wanted to listen to salsa. A friend, Brandon Wolf, watched   
   people carry Mr. Guerrero outside, his body riddled with gunshot   
   wounds.   
      
   But no one knew what had become of Mr. Leinonen. His mother,   
   Christine, anxious because of health problems, had woken at 3   
   a.m. to news of the shooting, and learned from Mr. Wolf that her   
   son had been inside.   
      
   A three-hour standoff followed the initial assault, with people   
   inside effectively held hostage until around 5 a.m., when law   
   enforcement officials led by a SWAT team raided the club, using   
   an armored vehicle and explosives designed to disorient and   
   distract. Over a dozen police officers and sheriff’s deputies   
   engaged in a shootout with Mr. Mateen, leaving him dead and an   
   officer wounded, his life saved by a Kevlar helmet that   
   deflected a bullet.   
      
   At least 30 people inside were rescued, and even the hardened   
   police veterans who took the building and combed through it,   
   aiding the living and identifying the dead, were shaken by what   
   they saw, said John Mina, the Orlando police chief. “Just to   
   look into the eyes of our officers told the whole story,” he   
   said.   
      
   It was the worst act of terrorism on American soil since Sept.   
   11, 2001, and the deadliest attack on a gay target in the   
   nation’s history, though officials said it was not clear whether   
   some victims had been accidentally shot by law enforcement   
   officers.   
      
   The toll of 50 dead is larger than the number of murders in   
   Orlando over the previous three years. Of an estimated 320   
   people in the club, nearly one-third were shot. The casualties   
   far exceeded those in the 2007 shooting at Virginia Tech, where   
   32 people were killed, and the 2012 shooting at an elementary   
   school in Newtown, Conn., where 26 people died.   
      
   “In the face of hate and violence, we will love one another,”   
   President Obama said in a special address from the White House.   
   “We will not give in to fear or turn against each other.   
   Instead, we will stand united as Americans to protect our people   
   and defend our nation, and to take action against those who   
   threaten us.”   
      
      
   As he had done after several previous mass shootings, the   
   president said the shooting demonstrated the need for what he   
   called “common-sense” gun measures.   
      
   “This massacre is therefore a further reminder of how easy it is   
   for someone to get their hands on a weapon that lets them shoot   
   people in a school or a house of worship or a movie theater or a   
   nightclub,” Mr. Obama said. “We have to decide if that’s the   
   kind of country we want to be. To actively do nothing is a   
   decision as well.”   
      
   The shooting quickly made its way into the presidential   
   campaign. Donald J. Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee,   
   who has accused Mr. Obama of weakness on radical Islam and has   
   called for barring Muslim immigrants, suggested on Twitter that   
   the president should resign.   
      
   “Appreciate the congrats for being right on radical Islamic   
   terrorism,” he wrote. “I don’t want congrats, I want toughness &   
   vigilance. We must be smart!”   
      
   Hillary Clinton, the presumptive Democratic nominee, released a   
   statement saying: “We need to redouble our efforts to defend our   
   country from threats at home and abroad. That means defeating   
   international terror groups, working with allies and partners to   
   go after them wherever they are, countering their attempts to   
   recruit people here and everywhere, and hardening our defenses   
   at home.”   
      
   Fears of violence led to heightened security at lesbian, gay,   
   bisexual and transgender events and gathering places around the   
   country. Law enforcement officials in Santa Monica, Calif.,   
   confirmed the arrest on Sunday of a heavily armed man who said   
   he was in the area for West Hollywood’s gay pride parade. The   
   authorities, however, said they did not know of any connection   
   between the California arrest and the Orlando shooting.   
      
   The F.B.I. investigated Mr. Mateen in 2013 when he made comments   
   to co-workers suggesting he had terrorist ties, and again the   
      
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