ORLANDO, Fla. – The city of Orlando released more 911 calls
Wednesday from the mass shooting at a gay Florida nightclub after the FBI said
the records are no longer a part of its investigation.
The calls came from
a patron who had just been inside the club but managed to run out with a friend
who was shot and from a brother who was texting with his sister who was shot in
her ribs and leg and was trapped in a nightclub bathroom. The brother passed on
information from his sister to a police dispatcher in several calls.
"She is saying,
'Please hurry up ... She says 'Try to get someone in there because he's getting
ready to shoot,'" the brother relayed to the police dispatcher in the
second hour of what would be a three-hour standoff between gunman Omar Mateen
and police. "She just says there is a lot of blood."
The dispatcher told
the brother that police officers were going room-to-room in the club, rescuing
trapped patrons.
"Why can't they
find her?" the brother asked. "She is losing a lot of blood. It's
making it kind of hard for me to talk to her."
Mateen, who had
pledged alliance to the Islamic State, was killed in a shootout with SWAT team
members rescuing police officers after a three-hour standoff on June 12. The
hours-long rampage killed 49 people and required hospitalization for 53 others
in the worst mass shooting in recent U.S. history.
The release of more
than a dozen 911 calls Wednesday came three months after the massacre and as a
legal fight between two dozen media groups and the city of Orlando over the
records is heading toward a conclusion.
The Associated Press
and other media organizations sued for the release of the more than 600 calls
made to emergency dispatchers, as well as communication between Mateen and
police, saying they could help the public evaluate police response to the
massacre.
The city countered
that the recordings were exempt under Florida's public records law, and that
the FBI insisted their release could disrupt the investigation.
The FBI said last
week withholding the records was no longer necessary.
The city had
previously released a handful of 911 calls, and like the ones made public
Wednesday, they are from family members or friends who were outside the club.
In one call released
Wednesday, a woman says her friend has been shot and they are outside the club.
A dispatcher tells
her police officers are at the club, but that he can't stay on the phone since
he is fielding other calls about the shooting.
"But my friend
is shot," the woman said, crying. "She is shot. My friend is shot!...
She is bleeding. She is right here!"
The dispatcher tells
her to stay on the line so she can be transferred to the fire department where
dispatchers can walk her through providing first aid to her friend.
"Stay on the
line. Don't hang up," the dispatcher said.
Follow Solenzo Blog on
0 Comments