The FBI has released the latest in the Orlando massacre: partial transcripts of 911 calls made by shooter Omar Mateen the night of the attack. Per the Orlando Sentinel, Mateen's first call was with a 911 dispatcher at 2:35am from the bathrooms inside Pulse, where he held hostages. "In the name of God the Merciful, the beneficial," he started out, the Washington Post reports, to which a confused dispatcher answered, "What?" "I'm in Orlando and I did the shootings," Mateen continued, offering up more praise to God, TMZ notes. Mateen, who also spoke in Arabic, swore allegiance to different groups (redacted by the FBI) before he ended the call less than a minute later. The Post reports that Mateen called back after that hang-up, then quickly hung up after a quick conversation with the dispatcher. The dispatcher was able to call back and get in touch with Mateen a third time before another brief back-and-forth and another hang-up.
That's when police negotiators began receiving their own calls, of which Mateen made three between 2:48am and 3:24am: one totaling nine minutes, one 16 minutes, and the final just three minutes. In those calls, Mateen proclaimed himself an Islamic soldier and demanded the end of bombings in Iraq and Syria—he also warned of a vehicle loaded with bombs outside the club and looming attacks. "In the next few days, you're going to see more of this type of action going on," he said. After that trio of calls, officials could no longer reach him on his phone. Orlando PD Chief John Mina gave the go-ahead for the SWAT team to crash the club's bathroom wall right after 5am after police learned Mateen planned to suit hostages up in bomb vests. Mateen came out shooting and was shot down at 5:15am. The FBI says it doesn't plan to release full transcripts of the calls. (More Pulse Orlando shooting stories.)
,
uBlock 
,
and
Ghostery 
)
