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New documents question timeline in Orlando, Florida, nightclub massacre

NEW YORK — Wounded nightclub patrons, trapped inside a bathroom during a standoff with a heavily armed gunman, pleaded for the police to rescue them, according to newly released sheriff’s dispatch logs — with some of them telling 911 operators that they were bleeding to death, or losing their vision and the feeling in their limbs.

A makeshift memorial outside the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida. Photo: AP

A makeshift memorial outside the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida. Photo: AP

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NEW YORK — Wounded nightclub patrons, trapped inside a bathroom during a standoff with a heavily armed gunman, pleaded for the police to rescue them, according to newly released sheriff’s dispatch logs — with some of them telling 911 operators that they were bleeding to death, or losing their vision and the feeling in their limbs.

The documents, which were released on Thursday (June 30), are the latest to fill in details about what went on inside the Pulse nightclub in the hours after the shooting started and about the police response to the massacre that killed 49 and wounded more than 50.

Officials in Orlando, Florida, said last week that they had no choice but to wait the situation out, finally ending the standoff three hours after it began. The gunman, Mr Omar Mateen, took hostages and claimed he had a bomb, officials said, forcing the police to first try negotiations.

Dispatch log records released on Thursday by the Orange County sheriff’s office showed that officers were first warned about the possibility of explosives at 2.51am, 49 minutes after the shooting began.

During that time, callers to 911 operators begged for help.

One woman, who called at 2.21am, said her body was going numb. For 24 minutes, the woman, who the log shows was 18, said everyone in the bathroom was injured and groaning in pain.

The “compl” — dispatch shorthand for “complainant” — was “losing feel in her leg”. “Just keeps saying I don’t want to die today,” the operator wrote. At one point, she was losing her eyesight and feeling in her body. “Just keeps pleading, please come to the bathroom,” the log says.

At 2.45am, the line went dead.

Another caller pleaded with 911 operators to “please tell cops to come”.

The sheriff’s records also showed that callers reported hearing gunshots at 2.30 and 2.34am, raising questions about earlier police accounts. Chief John Mina of the Orlando police had said the gunman did not fire any shots after 2.18am, suggesting no additional deaths occurred during the hourslong standoff with the police.

In a statement on Thursday, Mr Mina said: “The investigation into this incident is not complete. My statements reflect the FBI timeline which is based on information, some of which has not been released to the public, and accounts from officers who were in and around the Pulse nightclub that night.”

With federal investigators still talking to survivors, Mr Mina said, “it would be premature for me to comment on another agency’s communications or 911 transmissions or a specific call from an unknown person to another agency”.

With Thursday’s release of the county’s 911 logs, it was the second time in a week that Orlando city leaders have faced questions about the nightclub. Records released earlier suggested that weeks before the massacre, the Fire Department had found some of the club’s doors inoperable. The city said later that no serious problems had been found.

Emails showed that in addition to letters that offered support and praise, several people wrote to Mr Mina and Mayor Buddy Dyer asking why the police waited so long to take down the gunman.

At 5.02am, about a half-hour after Mr Mateen threatened to strap hostages with explosives, he was shot and killed when he stuck his head through a hole the police had blown in the wall of the club.

Ms Cassandra Lafser, a spokeswoman for the mayor, stressed on Thursday that the investigation was continuing but that no previous information had suggested shots were fired after 2.18am.

“Despite what was released in the documents from Orange County sheriff’s office, the facts remain that there was initial gunfire and, once that stopped,” Ms Lafser said, “police were constantly helping victims out of the building, bringing them to medical aid being provided by either the fire department or the hospital. Within the first hour there were reports that explosives existed. Despite this threat, OPD officers continue to rescue people from the building.”

Once the SWAT team breached the wall, she said, 30 people were rescued.

Mr Omar Delgado, a police officer from Eatonville, Florida, who was at the scene, said the officers were taking heavy fire at times.

“We were pinned down where we were at,” Mr Delgado said.

The sheriff’s logs show the officers requested shields — and were warned that the shields would not resist the ammunition Mr Mateen was firing from a rifle.

Mr Delgado helped remove survivors from the club. At one point, he said, superior officers gave the command to withdraw, because they believed the club was rigged with explosives.

Mr Orlando Torres, 52, who was part of a group that spent hours in the women’s bathroom with Mr Mateen, said he was reluctant to judge the police based on the new logs. He said there were many texts and 911 calls to various agencies, so in his view it was hard to know exactly what the people knew and when they knew it.

“I’m blind as to what they knew and what they were planning,” he said, adding that he understood why the group in his bathroom was the last to be saved.

He said he did hear at least one gunshot after Mr Mateen re-entered the bathroom during the period he was talking on the phone. NEW YORK TIMES

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