Attorney General Lynch Visiting Orlando To Meet With Prosecutors, Victims

But she said investigators haven’t ruled out the possibility of other motives for the attack, and they don’t yet know for sure why he targeted a gay nightclub for the shooting. Mateen died in a hail of police gunfire.

Earnest said lawmakers lament gun violence, but “don’t do anything about it”. “It is indeed a cruel irony that a community defined nearly exclusively by whom they love is so often a target of hate”, Ms. Lynch said.

(Reuters/Handout)An undated photo from a social media account of Omar Mateen, who police have identified as the suspect in the mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida.

Police stand guard down the road from the Pulse nightclub on June 17, 2016 in Orlando, Florida.

Orlando Regional Medical Center said 18 victims from the shooting were still at the hospital and three more surgeries were scheduled for Monday.

“I think there’s a real benefit to having her here to see everything first hand”, Mr Bentley said.

Most roadblocks around the club had been removed earlier in the day. In response to this routine request, the agency refused and said the documents are part of an active criminal investigation. “I’m just trying to clarify that that’s absolutely not true”, Mina said.

“According to reports, Sen”.

“Selectively editing this transcript is preposterous”, Ryan said in a statement.

Cox said keeping guns from terrorists and “providing meaningful due process are not mutually exclusive”.

Federal Emergency Management Agency officials say the disaster fund is not an appropriate source for such money. The governor’s press office referenced in a statement the $253,000 in federal assistance the state will receive to help pay overtime for the first responders following the attack.

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.

Newly released transcripts show Orlando gunman Omar Mateen spoke in Arabic to a 911 dispatcher and told a crisis negotiator that the us needed to stop bombing Iraq and Syria.

On Monday, the Federal Bureau of Investigation released a partial transcript of that 911 call and calls with police crisis negotiators, in which Mateen claimed to be an Islamic soldier. He says it means the US government won’t provide $5 million.

As the FBI investigated in the days that followed, the Lake County Sheriff’s Office provided support staff and its mobile command center, officials said.

Investigators are still interviewing family to ascertain in particular how much Mateen’s second wife knew of the plot ahead of time.

Attorney General Loretta Lynch announced Tuesday in Orlando that the Department of Justice will release $1 million in emergency funding for the Florida Department of Law Enforcement “as soon as possible”.

When backup police officers arrived, they went inside and fired at him, prompting him to retreat to a bathroom, where he barricaded himself with a group of hostages, Orlando Police Chief John Mina said.

“I could not be more proud of all the members of the Orlando community that I’ve encountered today – and I’ve made clear that the Department of Justice stands with them”, said Lynch.