FBI releases partial transcript of Orlando nightclub shooting calls

The Attorney General also said the transcripts would not include portions of the calls that would risk “revictimizing” those affected by the shooting.

According to the documents, Mateen said he was an “Islamic soldier”, spoke to a police dispatcher in Arabic and pledged allegiance to an unnamed terrorist organization.

Abu-Salha carried out the bombing on behalf of Al-Nusra Front, a terrorist rival of ISIS.

The FBI released partial transcripts Monday of three 911 calls as it prepared to give additional details about its investigation into the massacre at the Pulse nightclub, which left 49 victims dead.

Pressure from Republican leadership caused the Department of Justice to release a full transcript of phone conversations between gunman Omar Mateen and authorities on the night of the shooting at the Pulse nightclub. Mateen told the emergency dispatcher he was wearing an explosive vest like the kind they “used in France”, apparently referring to the deadly assault in Paris last November by Islamic militants, according to the transcript.

Mateen told negotiators that a vehicle parked outside Pulse was filled with explosives and warned that he was going to “ignite it if they (police) try to do anything stupid”.

Orlando’s police chief won’t answer questions about whether fire from any officers hit club-goers in the Orlando massacre, but he says that if that happened, gunman Omar Mateen is still responsible for those deaths. But I can tell you what: I have gone to funerals, I’ve sat down and cried with the parents. “Those killings are on the suspect and on the suspect alone in my mind”.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation released parts of the transcripts of calls Mateen made during the June 12 shooting.

Mateen, 29, was killed when police stormed the gay nightclub Pulse after a three-hour standoff.

Mateen drew the attention of agents in 2014 when he was identified as a suspected associate of American-born suicide bomber Moner Mohammad Abu Salha, who died in an attack in Syria.

For the next six minutes, Mateen worked his way through the club, according to witnesses, shooting people with a military-style rifle and a semi-automatic handgun then doubling back and shooting at those who had not yet died. Mateen also made a “goodbye” call to a friend, called a local television station, made posts to Facebook and exchanged texts with his wife while holed up in the club. Speaker Ryan added, “We know the shooter was a radical Islamist extremist inspired by ISIS”.

The FBI said it refrained from releasing the full transcripts of the 911 calls to prevent the spreading of “hateful propaganda”, but the agency relented after receiving numerous requests for the complete record.

In these calls, Mateen identified himself as an Islamic soldier. Lynch said that in order to move the investigation forward, investigators must find out why Mateen targeted the gay community.

It provided little new information about what Mateen said, but most telling, it included a timeline, showing when and how Orlando police officers responded to his words and actions. At 2:08 a.m. law enforcement officers entered the venue and engaged the shooter in gunfire.

Just after 5 a.m., OPD SWAT and the Orange County Sheriff’s Office’s Hazardous Device Team breached a wall to gain entry to the area where Mateen was hiding. “We don’t have to be afraid of saying to other people, ‘I’m here for you, ‘” she said.

There has been some speculation that Salman may have been complicit in last Sunday’s shootings at a gay nightclub, where 50 people were killed, including the shooter, and 53 injured.

“It doesn’t make any sense to me”, Scott said during an interview on FOX News Channel’s “America’s Newsroom”.