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http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/13/us/orlando-nightclub-shooting.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur&_r=0

A shooting inside a downtown Orlando, Fla., nightclub led to mass casualties, according to the police, who said that at least one gunman had been found dead inside.

The shooting was reported at about 3 a.m., after last call at Pulse, one of the largest gay nightspots in the Central Florida city.

On its Twitter feed, the Police Department asked residents to “stay away from area” and said that it was seeking support from local state and federal agencies.

The club itself posted a message on its Facebook page about 3 a.m.: “Everyone get out of pulse and keep running.”

Customers streamed out of the club into a chaotic situation with little idea of where to go. “Cops were saying, ‘Go, go, clear the area,’ ” Christopher Hansen told an Orlando television station. “You don’t know who’s what and who’s where.”


Police swept inside the club and about 5 a.m. set off a “controlled explosion” in an effort to clear the club, the department said in its Twitter feed. A news conference scheduled for 4:30 a.m. was canceled.

F.B.I. agents were called to the scene, and were scheduled to brief reporters with Orlando Police Chief John Mina; the city’s mayor, Buddy Dyer, and Sheriff Jerry L. Demings of the Orange County Sheriff’s Office.

various reports seem to suggest

multiple attackers, 2?

many injured or dead, 20-25 at least

explosives involved, suicide device? grenades/bombs?

homophobic motive?,

terrorist motive ? (separate as i'm taking the first as a personal statement, the second as an attack by part of a group)

CNN is reporting it as a domestic terror attack - 20 dead, 42 transported. That would make this one of the bigger ones, top 10 for sure, maybe top 5 (if we're just talking mass shootings).

FBI: 'Suggestions' Shooter Had Jihadist Tendencies
Authorities say there were "suggestions" shooter had leanings toward Islamic terrorism, but cautioned that nothing was yet definitive. - See the whole picture with ABC News.

https://twitter.com/ABC/status/741959051060252672?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw

Ought to be interesting to see how accurate this iteration of early reporting is.

I hope the injured recover quickly and completely. Fricking horrendous attack.

So far from what I saw on the news:

UPDATED
50 dead
50+ wounded
1 gunman with "assault style rifle" and a handgun

On the Today show they had video from the scene that didn't show anything, but it was from the moment the SWAT went in....there is like 10 to 20 seconds of damn near sustained automatic weapons firing.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Too much hate in this world :--(

Looks like a second gunman may have gone to a hospital posing as a victim.

https://twitter.com/20committee/status/741976613521391616




Automatically Appended Next Post:
Shooter tentatively IDed as Omar Mateen.

Police press confrense currently being broadcast;

-50 killed
-53 injured

-And the Police briefing is now having an Islamic 'faith leader' address the press. 'Calls on the community to report what you know'.

Yeah, they are confusing 'casualty' with 'dead'. It will take time to sort through and unfortunately some folks will likely die of wounds so the numbers will change as better reports come in and the situation changes.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/omar-mateen-orlando-gay-club-shooter-identified-by-police-us-media-a7077936.html

Police sources have identified the gunman in the mass shooting at a gay club in Florida as 29-year-old Omar Mateen, an American citizen whose parents are from Afghanistan, according to US media reports.

Ron Hopper, the FBI agent in charge of the operation, when asked if the gunman had a connection to radical Islamic terrorism, Hopper said authorities "have suggestions that individual has leanings towards that".

"This is an incident, as I see it, that we certainly classify as domestic terror incident," Orange County Sheriff Jerry Demings said.

 CptJake wrote:
Yeah, they are confusing 'casualty' with 'dead'. It will take time to sort through and unfortunately some folks will likely die of wounds so the numbers will change as better reports come in and the situation changes.

Hopefully, though my impression of what the Officer on the scene was saying is that there were 50 confirmed dead (which would be over 100 casualties), but hopefully that is an error. The alternative is difficult to contemplate.

Islamic faith leader urges 'not rushing to judgement'.

Updated to 50 dead.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2016/06/12/florida-gay-nightclub-shooting-injuries-reported-at-pulse-orland/

It's being refered to as a terror attack now http://www.cnn.com/2016/06/12/us/orlando-nightclub-shooting/index.html

Absolute insanity. I have no idea what to say. 50 dead. Jesus

This is horrible.

I hope we learn as much as possible about this guy, and how he was radicalized. It makes me wonder if there are outreach programs to the Islamic communities, to try to counter this type of stuff.

hopefully America will respond like France and embrace the vast majority of muslims who condemn evil stuff like this

doing anything other than that plays into the hands of the terrorists and makes further radicalisation more likely

This is insane. I wonder if they'll find any credible links that this guy had ties to other groups, or if he was purely a self-radicalized lone wolf type.

Another Attack... More fething senseless dead.

Whoever invented religion has alot to answer for...

 OrlandotheTechnicoloured wrote:
hopefully America will respond like France and embrace the vast majority of muslims who condemn evil stuff like this

doing anything other than that plays into the hands of the terrorists and makes further radicalisation more likely

Agreed.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 jhe90 wrote:
Another Attack... More fething senseless dead.

Whoever invented religion has alot to answer for...

It was a human who did this, not a religion.

Automatically Appended Next Post:

 jhe90 wrote:
Another Attack... More fething senseless dead.

Whoever invented religion has alot to answer for...

It was a human who did this, not a religion.

Just as a point of question, is this thread to be for both a broader discussion of this event, or more just for news?

I just want to make sure we don't have people looking in this thread for updates and then finding pages of people arguing about the 'Muslim Question', to strike an ominous tone.

 Buzzsaw wrote:
Just as a point of question, is this thread to be for both a broader discussion of this event, or more just for news?

I just want to make sure we don't have people looking in this thread for updates and then finding pages of people arguing about the 'Muslim Question', to strike an ominous tone.

Threads like this usually tend to be a bit of both.

This is not... optimal.

http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/orlando-nightclub-massacre/orlando-nightclub-shooting-emergency-services-respond-reports-gunman-n590446

...
Mir Seddique, Mateen's father told NBC News, "this has nothing to do with religion." Seddique said his son got angry when he saw two men kissing in Miami a couple of months ago and thinks that may be related to the shooting.
...

I got nothing.

Someone going with intent to kill at a place where everyone else was there to have fun and feel safe... I just feel a little bit dead inside.

Apparently he was in security. Had a g class firearms license. He had training and there's a video of gunfire being exchanged with police, whatever he was packing put a hole through a kevlar helmet.

The killers father claims his son was very angry after he saw two men kissing in Miami.
Guess his occupation was an armed security guard that was issued a G Florida firearm license.
FBI in the past did a two investigations on the guy according to the news.

http://www.tmz.com/


Pic of the guy. President is making a speech at 1:30pm.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------



"He's an American citizen and he has family that are not -- his parents are Afghan. Authorities say he was a terrorist and was targeting gays. They say in addition to terrorism this is a hate crime.
Authorities also believe he is part of the radical Islam movement, although they do not know if it was an organized attack or if he was a lone wolf. Authorities also believe Mateen specifically targeted a gay club.
Mateen's father told NBC News, "This has nothing to do with religion." He says his son became angry after seeing 2 men kissing a few months ago in Miami, and he speculates that could have triggered his decision to kill.
Law enforcement says Mateen was well prepared, with an assault weapon, a handgun and 2 suspicious devices.
The NYPD tells TMZ, Mateen has no association with the department, and that the shirts he was photographed in were unofficial garments that could be purchased at any store.
50 people were murdered and another 53 injured inside Pulse nightclub in Orlando. It's the biggest slaughter at the hands of a gunman in American history.
Take a look at the pic below ... it's a police helmet with a bullet hole. The helmet saved the officer's life, although he suffered facial injuries. "


----------------------------------------------------------------------

Saw this via twittah:

Damian PalettaVerified account
‏@damianpaletta
Rep. Schiff, who is always cautious, says Dept. of Homeland Security told him Orlando shooter made pledge of allegiance to Islamic State.

I am having severe reservations to the narrative that a single man with an AR-15 and a handgun murdered 50 people. Without the rifle being a fully automatic and the shooter carrying a double combat load, there would have been multiple stops in shooting to reload. Most of his shots would have needed to be kill shots too.

I'm not trying to add unnecessary conspiracy to a tragedy but I worry for people if there is 1 or more gunmen on the loose.

 BrotherGecko wrote:
I am having severe reservations to the narrative that a single man with an AR-15 and a handgun murdered 50 people. Without the rifle being a fully automatic and the shooter carrying a double combat load, there would have been multiple stops in shooting to reload. Most of his shots would have needed to be kill shots too.

I'm not trying to add unnecessary conspiracy to a tragedy but I worry for people if there is 1 or more gunmen on the loose.

Frankly it is easier to kill that many with semi-automatic fire than automatic fire. With auto you waste a lot of ammo and need to reload a lot more.

Easier than you would think in a crowded club, At those kinds of ranges you're going to get quite a few of through and through shots.

News reports saying he had "high capacity magazines"

What I don't particularly like is that news outlets are repeating the ISIS mantra already without any real evidence yet.