Tag Archives: Orlando shooting

Alive but still reeling one year after Florida nightclub shooting

Kaliesha Andino, a wounded survivor of the mass shooting at Florida's Pulse nightclub is seen hugging her mother in Orlando, Florida, U.S., on April 25, 2017. REUTERS/Letitia Stein

By Letitia Stein

ORLANDO, Fla. (Reuters) – Kaliesha Andino has spent the last year running from gunshots. At night, she flashes back to her hiding spot behind a bar in a Florida nightclub, where a bullet ripped through her arm during the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

The date her life shattered, June 12, 2016, is tattooed in Roman numerals on her other arm, along with images of clouds and an eye to memorialize a friend who was among the 49 people killed at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando.

Like others who got out alive, Andino, 20, has spent the year since the attack navigating the line between victim and survivor. Her physical wounds have healed. But she searches for exits in crowded rooms and has not been working.

“I will never have closure,” she said, adding: “I’ve got to live right now. I have to cope with the situation.”

The death toll in the attack marked the worst in a spate of U.S. shooting rampages in recent years – from Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut to an office party in San Bernardino, California – that stoked debate about gun control and left communities grappling with deep emotional and physical wounds.

Counseling and medical needs have consumed many survivors working to establish a new normal after gunman Omar Mateen opened fire at Pulse during Latin music night. Some saw their trauma magnified when the tragedy at the gay club outed them as lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender (LGBT).

One survivor recently had a lodged bullet removed. Others have struggled at times to leave home after the rampage, which also left more than 50 people injured.

Mateen held hostages inside for three hours before he died in an exchange of gunfire with police.

“They are still so raw,” said attorney Antonio Romanucci, who is suing Mateen’s ex-employer and widow on behalf of dozens of victims, including Andino and relatives of some of the deceased. “They are still living it.”

Approximately 300 people who were at the club or directly tied to the victims still receive support services from the Orlando United Assistance Center. That is down from the more than 800 helped in the immediate aftermath, said Michael Aponte, director for the resource hub, which involves government and community groups.

NOT READY TO MOVE ON

Rainbow-colored banners adorn the chain-link fence around Pulse. People from around the world have left mementos and scrawled notes, now fading in the sun. “Never stop dancing,” reads an inscription on a parking lot barrier.

To honor the one-year mark on Monday, June 12, Pulse owner Barbara Poma plans to open the club gate so survivors and victims’ relatives can gather inside at 2:02 a.m., when the first shots were fired.

“Everybody is still in very different places,” Poma said. “I would not say there is anybody that is ready to move on.”

At unexpected moments, 31-year-old Juan Jose Cufiño’s thoughts return to the night that started as a celebration with friends two days before he was to return to his native Colombia.

He hears bullets pounding the floor and people screaming, he said in Spanish through a translator. He smells blood.

The first shot to hit him struck his right arm. Two more tore into his legs. Falling to his knees, Cufiño waited for a fatal blow. A fourth shot pierced his back.

When police arrived waving flashlights, the former physical education teacher mustered all his strength to signal that he was alive. He remembers an officer dragging him out by an arm.

Three months later, Cufiño awoke from a medically induced coma and learned he would never walk again.

After a year of surgeries and rehabilitation, Cufiño still needs help dressing. But he can lift himself out of his wheelchair and hopes one day to prove medical experts wrong.

“In this moment, I don’t know what it is to be a survivor,” he said in Spanish. “I think I am still a victim.”

(Reporting by Letitia Stein; editing by Colleen Jenkins and Dan Grebler)

U.S. judge orders Florida nightclub shooter’s widow to remain in jail

File Photo: Investigators work the scene following a mass shooting at the Pulse gay nightclub in Orlando Florida, U.S. June 12, 2016. REUTERS/Carlo Allegri/File Photo

By Ian Simpson

(Reuters) – The widow of the gunman who killed 49 people at a gay nightclub in Florida must remain in jail after prosecutors argued that she was a threat to the community and a flight risk, a U.S. judge on Thursday ordered.

The federal judge in Florida stayed another judge’s order issued on Wednesday that would have released Noor Salman, 30, from a California jail. He put the release order on hold pending further arguments in the case.

Salman was arrested in California in January on federal charges she knew before the June 2016 shootings in Orlando that her husband, Omar Mateen, was planning the attack and concocted a cover story for him.

U.S. District Judge Paul Byron in Orlando ordered Salman detained and set a Wednesday deadline for her lawyers to respond to prosecutors’ arguments that she should be jailed pending her trial in Florida.

Salman is charged with obstructing justice and aiding Mateen in his attempt to provide material support to the Islamic State militant group.

Prosecutors argued in a motion that the seriousness of the charge related to the Islamic State meant Salman should be kept in jail.

“No pretrial release condition or combination of conditions may be imposed to reasonably assure the defendant’s appearance as required or the safety of the community,” they said.

They also said that Salman was a flight risk since she was unemployed and had moved to California, where she has relatives, and had almost no ties to Florida. Her family also owns property in the Middle East, they said.

Charles Swift, Salman’s lawyer, said Byron’s order keeping Salman jailed pending the filing of more motions was routine. “It’s standard,” he said in a telephone interview.

U.S. Magistrate Judge Donna Ryu on Wednesday had cleared the way for Salman’s release and appeared throw doubt on the government’s case against her.

Ryu had ordered her to live with her uncle in Rodeo, California, undergo GPS monitoring and leave home only for court and medical appointments. She set a $500,000 bond.

Mateen was killed in a shootout with police after a standoff at Orlando’s Pulse nightclub and carried out the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. Before the shooting he called 911 and swore allegiance to the Islamic State.

(Reporting by Ian Simpson in Washington; Editing by Lisa Shumaker)

Exclusive: White House plans community-based prevention of violent ideologies

White House

By Julia Edwards

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A new White House plan aims to train teachers and mental health professionals to intervene and prevent Americans from turning to violence ideologies, work now mostly done by law enforcement, a draft of the policy seen by Reuters to be announced on Wednesday shows.

The 18-page plan marks the first time in five years the Obama administration has updated its policy for preventing the spread of violent groups, such as those that motivated the perpetrators of attacks in the last year in Charleston, South Carolina, San Bernardino, California, Orlando, Florida, New York and New Jersey.

A self-styled white supremacist shot dead nine black people inside a historic African-American church in Charleston and the other shootings and bombs were inspired by Islamist militants, who have carried out attacks on civilians in several countries.

Both Republicans and Democrats in Congress have questioned Department of Homeland Security officials over the delay in updating its approach to countering recruitment strategies by Islamic State, which controls parts of Iraq and Syria, and other groups.

Congress does not have the authority to reject the plan, but they could withhold funding to see that it is not fully implemented.

Civil liberties groups, including the Council on American-Islamic Relations, have criticized the current model as one that creates distrust in Muslim communities in the United States. Federal prosecutors, who are charged with conducting terrorism investigations, also lead prevention efforts.

Prosecutors would still have a role in prevention efforts under the new policy, including arranging after-school programs, but they would not be allowed to use those settings for intelligence gathering.

In Minneapolis, U.S. Attorney Andrew Luger prosecuted 10 Somali-American men earlier this year for plotting to fight with the Islamic State overseas while simultaneously leading community outreach efforts with the same Somali community.

Studies have shown family members and friends are most likely to notice a loved one may be considering violence, the policy explains. But some may be reluctant to report the behavior to law enforcement.

“Successful efforts to counter violent extremism are, in large part, predicated on trust,” the policy states.

Under the new guidelines, “local intervention teams” made up of mental health professionals, faith-based groups, educators and community leaders will assess the needs of individuals who may be showing signs of converting to a violent ideology.

Local law enforcement officers may also be part of the team, but not federal prosecutors.

“We determined that efforts to build intervention teams are less likely to succeed if they are driven by the federal government,” said Brette Steele, acting deputy director of the U.S. government’s Countering Violent Extremism Task Force, suggesting instead the teams should be community-led.

Only when a person is believed to “pose a threat or be immediately capable of committing a crime,” should law enforcement actions be taken, the policy states.

The policy also calls on the Justice Department to implement rehabilitation strategies that could include using former violent converts as counselors for those convicted of terrorism.

(Reporting by Julia Edwards, Editing by Tim Ahmann and Grant McCool)

Orlando 911 calls tell of fear inside and outside of Pulse club

The Pulse night club sign is pictured through a fence following the mass shooting there last week in Orlando, Florida, U.S., June 21,

By Barbara Liston

ORLANDO, Fla. (Reuters) – Panicked callers to 911 during June’s mass shooting in Orlando told police of buildings hit by stray bullets and wounded friends stuck inside the gay nightclub where a gunman pledging allegiance to Islamic State killed 49 people.

“Gun shots were just like crazy,” one caller outside the club told 911 operators, according to partial transcripts of the calls that were released on Tuesday.

Shooter Omar Mateen killed 49 people and wounded 53 at the Pulse nightclub in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

One neighbor near Pulse told 911 operators people were banging on his door to escape the shooting and others were seeking cover behind parked cars.

People reported on the carnage inside the club.

“One of our friends sent us a text and he said that he’s been shot and he’s in the bathroom and no one sees him,” one caller told 911.

A woman told an operator her husband was in the club and he reported shooting.

“He told me he cannot get out. He’s over there (and) he said he cannot get out,” the woman said.

A man said: “I just got home from the Pulse club … My friends texted me (to) tell me there is a shooting going (on) A lot of my friends got shot.”

The operator responds by saying not to text or call the friend.

Authorities did not release the names of those who called 911 or those who were mentioned as being inside the club.

Mateen, 29, was killed by police inside the nightclub.

He pledged allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State militant group during the rampage in which he used an assault rifle and pistol that had been legally purchased although he had twice been investigated by the FBI for possible connections with militant Islamist groups.

U.S. authorities believe that Mateen, who lived in Fort Pierce, Florida, with his wife and young child, was self-radicalized and acted alone without assistance or orders from abroad.

(Reporting by Barbara Liston; Writing by Jon Herskovitz; Editing by Alistair Bell)

Senate votes down proposal to expand FBI surveillance powers

FBI at the Pulse

By Dustin Volz

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Senate on Wednesday voted down a Republican-backed proposal to expand the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s secretive surveillance powers after the mass shooting at an Orlando gay nightclub last week.

The measure followed the Senate’s rejection on Monday of four measures that would have restricted gun sales.

During Wednesday’s vote, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell switched his vote to ‘no,’ giving himself the opportunity to bring the measure up for consideration again as soon as later this week.

The legislation would broaden the type of telephone and internet records the FBI could request from companies such as the Google unit of Alphabet Inc and Verizon Communications Inc without a warrant. Opponents, including some major technology companies, have said it would threaten civil liberties and do little to improve national security.

The legislation before the Senate on Wednesday, filed as an amendment to a criminal justice funding bill, would widen the FBI’s authority to use so-called National Security Letters, which do not require a warrant and whose very existence is usually a secret.

Such letters can compel a company to hand over a user’s phone billing records. Under the Senate’s change, the FBI would be able to demand electronic communications transaction records such as time stamps of emails and the emails’ senders and recipients, in addition to some information about websites a person visits and social media log-in data.

It would not enable the FBI to use national security letters to obtain the actual content of electronic communications.

The legislation would also make permanent a provision of the USA Patriot Act that lets the intelligence community conduct surveillance on “lone wolf” suspects who do not have confirmed ties to a foreign terrorist group. That provision, which the Justice Department said last year had never been used, expires in December 2019.

The bill had been expected to narrowly pass but it fell two votes short of the required 60.

The future of the Senate proposal in the House of Representatives was also uncertain, given its alliance between libertarian-leaning Republicans and tech-friendly Democrats that has blocked past efforts to expand surveillance.

Privacy groups and civil liberties advocates accused Republicans this week of exploiting the Orlando shooting to build support for unrelated legislation.

Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, criticized Senate Republicans for “pushing fake, knee-jerk solutions that will do nothing to prevent mass shootings or terrorist attacks.”

Though Republicans invoked the Orlando shooting in support of the bill, FBI Director James Comey has said Omar Mateen’s transactional records were fully reviewed by authorities who investigated him twice for possible extremist ties.

Comey said there was “no indication” Mateen belonged to any extremist group and that it was unlikely authorities could have done anything differently to prevent the attack.

(Reporting by Dustin Volz; Editing by Steve Orlofsky and Bernard Orr)

Senate likely to pass FBI spying bill after Orlando shooting

Man paying respect to the dead at Pulse memorial

By Dustin Volz

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The U.S. Senate on Wednesday is likely to pass a Republican-backed proposal to expand the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s secretive surveillance powers after the mass shooting at an Orlando gay nightclub last week.

The spying bill is the Republican response to the massacre after a push for gun-control measures sponsored by both major U.S. parties failed earlier this week.

The legislation would broaden the type of telephone and internet records the FBI could request from companies like Alphabet Inc and Verizon without a warrant. The proposal met opposition from critics who said it threatened civil liberties and did little to improve national security.

The bill, which the Obama administration has sought for years, “will allow the FBI to collect the dots so they can connect the dots, and that’s been the biggest problem that they’ve had in identifying these homegrown, radicalized terrorists,’” Senator John Cornyn, the chamber’s No. 2 Republican, said Tuesday.

The vote also represents a bi-partisan drift away from policy positions that favored digital privacy, which had taken hold in the three years since former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden revealed the breadth of government surveillance programs.

The post-Snowden moves included the most substantial reforms to the U.S. intelligence community since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks, and a refusal to heed the FBI’s call for laws that would undermine encryption.

It is unclear if the House would pass the Senate proposal, given its alliance between libertarian-leaning Republicans and tech-friendly Democrats that has blocked past efforts to expand surveillance.

The legislation before the Senate Wednesday, filed as an amendment to a criminal justice funding bill, would widen the FBI’s authority to use so-called National Security Letters, which do not require a warrant and whose very existence is usually a secret.

Such letters can currently compel a company to hand over a user’s phone billing records. Under the Senate’s change they could demand electronic communications transaction records such as time stamps of emails and the emails’ senders and recipients, in addition to some information about websites a person visits.

The legislation would also make permanent a provision of the USA Patriot Act that allows the intelligence community to conduct surveillance on “lone wolf” suspects who do not have confirmed ties to a foreign terrorist group. That provision, which the Justice Department said last year had never been used, is currently set to expire in December 2019.

‘KNEE-JERK SOLUTIONS’

Privacy groups and civil liberties advocates accused Republicans this week of exploiting the Orlando shooting to build support for unrelated legislation.

Senator Ron Wyden, an Oregon Democrat, criticized Senate Republicans for “pushing fake, knee-jerk solutions that will do nothing to prevent mass shootings or terrorist attacks.”

Though Republicans invoked the Orlando shooting in support of the bill, FBI Director James Comey has said Mateen’s transactional records were fully reviewed by authorities who investigated him twice for possible extremist ties.

Comey said there was “no indication” Mateen belonged to any extremist group and that it was unlikely authorities could have done anything differently to prevent the attack.

(Reporting by Dustin Volz; Editing by Jonathan Weber and Andrew Hay)

Full Orlando 911 transcript released; gunman pledged allegiance to Islamic State

Makeshift memorial for victims of Pulse shooting

By Barbara Liston

ORLANDO, Fla. (Reuters) – The U.S. Justice Department and the FBI on Monday released what they said was the complete transcript of the phone conversation between the Orlando, Florida, shooter and 911 police operators as he threatened to strap explosives to his hostages.

The release of the full transcript came a few hours after the FBI had issued an edited transcript of the calls.

In the full transcript, the gunman, Omar Mateen, is quoted pledging allegiance to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

Mateen, 29, killed 49 people at a gay nightclub in Florida on June 12, in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. He threatened to detonate a car rigged with bombs and to strap hostages into explosive vests, according to transcripts of the 911 calls he made while police tried to rescue people trapped in the club.

The FBI and Justice Department said they had released a redacted transcript of the conversations because of sensitivity to the interests of survivors and victims’ families, and the integrity of the investigation.

But the first transcript led U.S. House of Representative Speaker Paul Ryan and other politicians to call for the release of a full transcript after a political battle over gun violence brewed in the U.S. Congress.

Mateen’s conversations with a dispatcher and crisis negotiators were made public as police sought to fend off criticism that they may have acted too slowly to end a three-hour standoff at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando.

“You people are gonna get it and I’m gonna ignite it if they try to do anything stupid,” Mateen said during one of the calls, according to the FBI transcript.

(Additional reporting by Letitia Stein in Tampa, Frank McGurty in New York, and Eric Beech, Mohammad Zargham and Patricia Zengerle in Washington; Writing by Fiona Ortiz and Daniel Wallis; Editing by Bill Trott)

U.S. to reveal details of Orlando nightclub gunman’s 911 calls

Mourning over Pulse Massacre

(Reuters) – U.S. authorities were due on Monday to release partial transcripts of 911 calls made during last week’s mass shooting by a gunman who slaughtered 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, before being killed by police.

Omar Mateen, 29, is said to have paused during a three-hour siege to telephone emergency dispatchers three times and to post internet messages from inside the Pulse nightclub professing his support for Islamist militant groups.

The FBI was due to hold a news conference near the club at 11 a.m. EDT (1500 GMT) to provide an update on the investigation and to release the partial transcripts of the 911 calls.

Attorney General Loretta Lynch said they would include the “substance of his conversations” recorded as Mateen carried out the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, but not any pledge of loyalty he is alleged to have made to the Islamic State militant group.

Authorities have said preliminary evidence indicates Mateen, who worked as a security guard, was a mentally disturbed individual who acted alone and without direction from outside networks.

Lynch, who is due to visit Orlando on Tuesday, told CNN on Sunday that investigators have been focused on building a full profile of Mateen, a New York-born U.S. citizen and Florida resident of Afghan descent, who has been described by U.S. officials as “self-radicalized” in his extremist sympathies.

The Pulse massacre, which also left 53 people wounded, led to a week of national mourning and soul-searching over access to firearms and the vulnerability to hate crimes of people in the gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender community.

While in Orlando, Lynch will meet with investigators, as well as survivors and loved ones of the victims.

The massacre has triggered an effort to break a long-standing stalemate in Congress over gun control.

The Senate was set to vote on Monday on four competing measures – two from Democrats and two from Republicans – to expand background checks on gun buyers and curb gun sales for people on terrorism watch lists.

Donald Trump, the presumptive Republican nominee for the Nov. 8 presidential election, has said he shares the goal of keeping guns out of the hands of people on watch lists.

Trump said on Monday he was referring to security staff, not patrons, when he said that if more people had been armed in the nightclub, fewer would have died.

(Reporting by David Lawder in Washington and Roselle Chen in Orlando; Writing by Daniel Wallis; Editing by Bill Trott)

Senate Republicans agree to vote on gun control: Democratic senator

Gun Control meeting of politicans

WASHINGTON (Reuters) – U.S. Democratic Senator Chris Murphy ended a blockade of the Senate after nearly 15 hours on Thursday, saying Republicans agreed to hold votes on measures to expand background checks and prevent people on U.S. terrorism watch lists from buying guns.

Democrats stalled Senate proceedings on Wednesday in a bid to push for tougher gun control legislation following Sunday’s massacre of 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, and spoke on the Senate floor through out the night.

Republicans, who currently have a 54-person majority in the Senate, have over the years blocked gun control measures, saying they step on Americans’ right to bear arms as guaranteed under the U.S. Constitution.

“When we began there was no commitment, no plan to debate these measures,” Murphy, of Connecticut, said during the 15th hour of the filibuster early on Thursday.

He said Democrats were given a commitment by the Senate’s Republican leadership that votes would be allowed on two measures on preventing gun sales to people on terrorism watch lists and expanding background checks.

“No guarantee that those amendments pass but we’ll have some time to … prevail upon members to take these measures and turn them into law,” Murphy said.

With Republicans and the National Rifle Association gun lobby under pressure to respond to the massacre, presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump said on Wednesday he would meet with the NRA to discuss ways to block people on terrorism watch or no-fly lists from buying guns.

The Senate had began discussions on legislation to ban firearm sales to the hundreds of thousands of people on U.S. terrorism watch lists. The Orlando gunman, who carried out the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history, had been on such a list.

Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell urged senators on Wednesday to offer ideas on how to prevent another attack like the one in Orlando.

Late on Wednesday Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid said negotiations “were little more than a smokescreen by Republicans trying to give themselves political cover while they continue to march in lock-step with the NRA’s extreme positions.”

If Congress was to pass a gun control measure, it would mark the first time in more than 20 years that lawmakers agreed on how to address the hot-button issue. A ban on semi-automatic assault weapons, such as the one used in Orlando, had gone into effect in 1994 and expired 10 years later.

(Reporting by Susan Cornwell; Writing Mohammad Zargham; Editing by Bill Trott)

Wife of Orlando shooter could face charges soon

Gunshot survivor Angel Santiago recounts his story at a news conference at Florida Hospital Orlando on the shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando

By Letitia Stein and Julia Edwards

ORLANDO, Fla./WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The wife of the gunman who killed 49 people at an Orlando nightclub could face criminal charges as early as Wednesday after a federal grand jury was convened to study possible wrongdoing by her, a law enforcement source said.

Omar Mateen’s wife, Noor Salman, knew of his plans for what became the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history, said the law enforcement source, who has been briefed on the matter.

U.S. Senator Angus King, a member of the Senate Intelligence Committee, which received a briefing on the investigation into Sunday’s massacre, told CNN it appeared Salman had “some knowledge” of what was going on.

“She definitely is, I guess you would say, a person of interest right now and appears to be cooperating and can provide us with some important information,” King said.

Salman was with Mateen when he cased possible targets in the past two months, including the Disney World resort in April, a shopping complex called Disney Springs and the Pulse nightclub in early June, CNN and NBC reported.

Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer was due to open a family assistance center at a stadium on Wednesday where those directly affected by the tragedy will be able to get information, support and other resources, city officials said.

Mateen, who was shot dead by police SWAT team members after a three-hour standoff, called 911 during his rampage to profess allegiance to various militant Islamist groups.

Federal investigators have said he was likely self-radicalized and there was no evidence he received any help or instructions from outside groups such as Islamic State. Mateen, 29, was a U.S. citizen, born in New York of Afghan immigrant parents and worked as a security guard.

“He appears to have been an angry, disturbed, unstable young man who became radicalized,” President Barack Obama told reporters.

Salman’s mother, Ekbal Zahi Salman, lives in a middle-class neighborhood in Rodeo, California, about 25 miles (40 km) north of San Francisco. A neighbor said Noor Salman only visited her mother once after she married Mateen.

Noor Salman’s mother “didn’t like him very much. He didn’t allow her (Noor) to come here,” said neighbor Rajinder Chahal. He said he had spoken to Noor Salman’s mother after the Orlando attack and she “was crying, weeping.”

“I’M NEXT”

Mateen’s rampage at Pulse was systematic as he worked his way through the packed club shooting people who were already down, apparently to ensure they were killed, said Angel Colon, a wounded survivor.

“I look over and he shoots the girl next to me and I was just there laying down and thinking, ‘I’m next, I’m dead,'” he said.

Mateen shot him twice more, one bullet seemingly aimed for Colon’s head striking his hand, and another hitting his hip, Colon said at Orlando Regional Medical Center, where he is one of 27 survivors being treated.

Vigils continued on Tuesday in Orlando. Hundreds of students gathered to pray and sing in the evening at the University of Central Florida. They shone cellphone flashlights during a reading of the names of the dead including two alumni.

The shooting raised questions about how the United States should respond to violent extremists at home and abroad. The Federal Bureau of Investigation questioned Mateen in 2013 and 2014 for suspected ties to Islamist militants but was unable to verify that he posed a threat.

Obama slammed Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump for his proposed ban on Muslims entering the United States, joining fellow Democrat Hillary Clinton in portraying Trump as unfit for the White House.

Trump criticized Obama for not using the term “radical Islamic terrorism” to describe Islamist militants. Obama replied that using that label would not accomplish anything.

ISLAMIC STATE PLEDGE

Mateen made 911 calls from the club in which he pledged loyalty to the leader of Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, whose organization controls parts of Iraq and Syria.

“We could hear him talking to 911 saying that the reason why he’s doing this is because he wants America to stop bombing his country,” said Patience Carter, 20, who was trapped in a bathroom stall at the nightclub as Mateen prowled outside.

U.S. officials were investigating media reports that Mateen may have been gay but not openly so, and questioning whether that could have driven his attack, according to two people who have been briefed on the investigation and requested anonymity to discuss it.

Barbara Poma, the owner of the Pulse nightclub, speaking through a representative, denied reports Mateen had been a regular patron.

“Untrue and totally ridiculous,” spokeswoman Sara Brady said in an email when asked about the claim.

A former wife of Mateen, Sitora Yusufiy, said her ex-husband had facets of his life that he did not share with his family, such as drinking and going to nightclubs.

“He did have a different side to him that he could not open up to his father about,” Yusufiy told CNN. “It doesn’t surprise me that he might be gay.”

She has previously said he was mentally unstable and beat her and that she fled their home after four months of marriage.

(Additional reporting by Eric Beech in Washington, Barbara Liston, Bernie Woodall and Yara Bayoumy in Orlando, Brendan O’Brien in Milwaukee, Wis., Zachary Fagenson in Port St. Lucie, Fla., and Alexandria Sage in Rodeo, Calif.; Writing by Alistair Bell and Fiona Ortiz; Editing by Dominic Evans and Bill Trott)