Mateen barricaded himself in a room with about five to eight hostages, said Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer. Mateen, who worked as a security officer, was armed with an AR-15-style assault rifle and a pistol that the feds say he bought “in the past few days” when he started spraying bullets at about 350 patrons inside the Pulse dancehall around 2 a.m., officials said.Īn off-duty cop working as a security guard at the club returned fire, prompting Mateen to retreat further into the hotspot and take hostages, officials said.
Omar Mateen, 29, called 911 and pledged his allegiance to ISIS and mentioned the Boston Marathon bombings early on in his bloodbath, according to reports.
Suspected gay nightclub mass shooter Omar Mateen. A homophobic ISIS sympathizer killed at least 50 people and wounded 53 others during a rampage at a gay nightclub in Florida early Sunday - marking the country’s deadliest mass shooting.
