911 transcript: Orlando gunman said he was Islamic soldier
ORLANDO, Fla. » Orlando gunman Omar Mateen spoke in Arabic to a 911 dispatcher, identified himself an Islamic soldier and demanded to a crisis negotiator that the U.S. “stop bombing Syria and Iraq,” according to transcripts released by the FBI today.
The partial, printed transcripts were of three conversations Mateen had with the police during the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history, in which 49 people died and dozens were wounded.
Those communications, along with Facebook posts Mateen made before and after the shooting, add to the public understanding of the final hours of Mateen’s life.
The first call came more than a half hour after shots rang out, when Mateen told a 911 operator, “Praise be to God, and prayers as well as peace be upon the prophet of God,” he told the dispatcher, referring to God in Arabic.
“I let you know, I’m in Orlando and I did the shootings.”
During the 50-second call with a dispatcher, Mateen “made murderous statements in a “chilling, calm and deliberate manner,” said Ronald Hopper, FBI assistant special agent in charge in Orlando.
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However, there is no evidence Mateen was directed by a foreign terrorist group, and he was radicalized on his own, Hopper said.
Mateen’s name and the groups and people to whom he pledged allegiance were omitted from the excerpt. But the FBI has previously said he pledged allegiance to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of the Islamic State.
Shortly after the call, Mateen had three conversations with crisis negotiators in which he identified himself as an Islamic soldier and told a negotiator to tell America to stop bombing Syria and Iraq. He said that was why he was “out here right now,” according to the excerpt.
Meanwhile, hospital officials said four people remained in critical condition this morning, more than a week after they were wounded in the attack.
Orlando Regional Medical Center said 18 victims from the shooting were still at the hospital and three more surgeries were scheduled for today. The other 14 patients are listed in stable condition.
Armed with a semi-automatic weapon, Mateen went on a bloody rampage at the Pulse nightclub June 12. He died in a hail of gunfire after police stormed the venue.
U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch will travel to Orlando on Tuesday to meet with investigators. She said that a key goal of the investigation was to determine why Mateen targeted the gay community. The victims were predominantly gay and Hispanic since it was “Latin night” at Pulse.
Around Orlando, people left balloons, flowers, pictures and posters at a makeshift memorial in front of the city’s new performing arts center and at Orlando Regional Medical Center where 49 white crosses were emblazoned with red hearts and the names of the victims.
The crosses were built by a Chicago carpenter with a history of constructing crosses for victims of mass shootings. Greg Zanis drove from Illinois to Orlando last week and installed the crosses at the medical center, where many of the 53 shooting victims who survived were taken for treatment.
Dr. Khurshid Ahmed was part of a group of Muslim-Americans at a Sunday vigil attended by tens of thousands who held signs reading, “Muslims Condemn Extremism.” A letter from the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, Republican Ron Johnson of Wisconsin, said Mateen wrote on Facebook that “real Muslims will never accept the filthy ways of the West.”
Alex Sanz in Orlando contributed to this report.
4 responses to “911 transcript: Orlando gunman said he was Islamic soldier”
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His family and friends knew. Go after them hard.
“….. the groups and people to whom he pledged allegiance were omitted from the excerpt.” HEY..I thought O said he’ll be and have the MOST TRANSPARENT administration ever? lol the Libs got fooled twice by this FOOL. Absolutely no doubt O IS the WORST potus in American history!
Yes, what is the problem in releasing the full, unredacted transcripts instead of the edited version which edits out any reference to ISIS or its leaders? Obama and his administration won’t verbally mention the words Islamic terrorism nor can they allow any written references to it either.
U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch’s key goal is “to determine why Mateen targeted the gay community”. Um, REALLY? In his phone call to 911, he stated he was an Islamic solder, praised God in Arabic, and pledged allegiance to an Islamic terrorist group (although our government has inexplicably redacted the specific references to Islamic names). Shouldn’t the U.S.’s key goal be to determine why Mateen, a U.S. citizen, came to hate his country of birth and became an Islamic extremist? The investigation certainly shouldn’t center on why he chose gays as his target. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to theorize that it’s likely he chose a gay nightclub because he had sexually-conflicted feelings, and he hated that in the U.S., people are free to express their homosexuality. Plus, he knew it would be an easy target, maximizing his ability to kill as many people as possible in as short a time as possible. The real issue here is radial Islamic hatred for the West.