Shooter dies after Florida nightclub shooting

“It’s appears he was organized and well-prepared”, Orlando Police Chief John Mina said at a Sunday-morning news conference, noting that the shooter had an assault-type weapon and a handgun.

Florida Department of Law Enforcement Special Agent in Charge Danny Banks says the mass shooting is being investigated as an act of terrorism.

Police did not immediately name the gunman or provide a possible motive for the attack but officials have classified the rampage as a “domestic terrorism incident”, Orange County Sheriff Jerry Demings said.

Police said he had been armed with an assault-type rifle, a handgun and some type of suspicious device.

Orlando police said “approximately 20 people” were killed at Pulse, a popular gay bar and dance club. When asked whether the shooter had ties to radical Islamic terrorim, Mina said there were “suggestions that the individual might have leanings toward that ideology”.

At one point he left the club and exchanged shots with an officer outside, then he went back in and took hostages, the Associated Press reports.

About three hours later, Mina said a decision was made to rescue the hostages, and the shooter was killed in a gunfight with officers.

Officers killed the gunman, who they called a “lone wolf”, in a shootout just before 6 a.m. Police described it as a “mass casualty situation”. At least 42 people were taken to hospitals.

“The next text said: ‘He has us, and he’s in here with us.’ That was the last conversation”, she told Daily Mail.

One club patron said of the gunfire he believed there were at least two shooters.

She was signing autographs when Grimmie was shot by Kevin James Loibl, 26, who then killed himself.

It also follows a December shooting in San Bernardino, Calif., during which Syed Rizwan Farook and his wife, Tashfeen Malik, opened fire on a holiday party of his co-workers, killing 14 people and injuring 22. “I just tried to get out of there”.

“The next text said: ‘He has us, and he’s in here with us, ‘” Justice told the Washington Post. “I guess the shooter was shooting at the ceiling because you could see all the glass from the lamps falling”, he told the network. “I just said please, please, please, I want to make it out”, he said.

Officials said a hostage situation developed after the gunman stormed the Pulse Nightclub about 2 a.m. On Friday evening, former The Voice contestant Christina Grimmie was shot after a concert at Orlando’s Plaza Live. “I saw blood. You hope and pray you don’t get shot”.

Orlando Police officers direct family members away from a multiple shooting at Pulse nightclub.

Speaking to Sky News, clubber Ricardo Negron, who was inside when the shooting began, described how the gunman raked the club with bullets.