Tag: Orlando

The FBI has released partial transcripts of Omar Mateen’s conversations with police while he was shooting up Pulse in Orlando.

As we’ve previously reported, Mateen threatened to use explosives, including a car bomb and a suicide vest. Investigators say they didn’t find those items in or outside the club. In the calls, Mateen also identified himself as”an Islamic soldier” who pledged allegiance to a terrorist group, FBI Assistant Special Agent in Charge Ron Hopper said Monday.

Throughout the calls, Hopper says, Mateen spoke in a “chilling, calm and deliberate manner.”

That’s how “Islamic soldiers” work. They’re chill.

A key name is missing from the official text, that of ISIS, the terrorist group to which Mateen reportedly pledged allegiance in the call. The term was redacted, in a move Attorney General Loretta Lynch discussed Sunday.

The discussion reported by CNN is singularly unenlightening.

FBI Director James Comey said Monday there were three calls with Mateen.

“During calls he said he was doing this for leader of (ISIS) who he named and pledged loyalty to,” Comey had said. “But he also claimed to pledge solidarity with the perpetrators of the Boston Marathon bombing and solidarity with a Florida man who died as a suicide bomber in Syria for al-Nusra Front, a group in conflict with the so-called Islamic State. The bombers at the Boston Marathon and the suicide bomber from Florida were not inspired by (ISIS) which adds a little bit to the confusion about his motives.”

Lynch also said that political correctness is not getting in the way of terror investigations and that maintaining contacts within the Muslim community is very important because “if they’re from that community and they’re being radicalized, their friends and family members will see it first.”

“We investigate these cases aggressively, no stone is left unturned,” she told Bash. “There is no backing away from an issue, there is no backing away from an interview because of anyone’s background. Because for us, the source of information is very, very important.”

I don’t get it. I don’t get why ISIS is in parentheses, or redacted.

Back to NPR and the transcript. It’s nasty.

2:35 a.m.: Shooter contacted a 911 operator from inside Pulse. The call lasted approximately 50 seconds, the details of which are set out below:

Orlando Police Dispatcher (OD)
Shooter (OM)

OD: Emergency 911, this is being recorded.

OM: In the name of God the Merciful, the beneficial [in Arabic]
OD: What?

OM: Praise be to God, and prayers as well as peace be upon the prophet of God [in Arabic]. I let you know, I’m in Orlando and I did the shootings.

OD: What’s your name?
OM: My name is I pledge of allegiance to [omitted].
OD: Ok, What’s your name?

OM: I pledge allegiance to [omitted] may God protect him [in Arabic], on behalf of [omitted].

OD: Alright, where are you at?

OM: In Orlando.

OD: Where in Orlando?
[End of call.]

National Public Radio thinks Mariella Mosthof’s piece telling white straight “cis” people not to write about Orlando is so good that it needs to be highlighted on NPR.

Really, NPR?

In an essay for Bustle, Mariella Mosthof reflects on how this type of violence can end up affirming straight anxieties over queerness. She says parents can reject their queer children “from a place of their own fear, or their own desire for you to be safe,” and the conviction that “the easiest way for you to be safe is for you to be ‘normal.’”

But she said a lot more than that, and at the beginning of the piece, and what she said there was frankly ugly and vile. Here are the first four paragraphs again:

If you are a cisgender, heterosexual, white person, please do not write aboutthe largest mass shooting in American history, which took place this Sunday at a gay club called Pulse in Orlando during the venue’s Latino night. Of course, share condolences, express how horribly you feel for the victims and their families, tell your queer Latinx friends that you love them, lend support. But please do not take it upon yourself to publicly point out the hypocrisy of Paul Ryan tweeting “thoughts and prayers” when the legislative agenda of his party actively marginalizes queer people all the time.

Please do not wax poetic about the outrage of Trump supporters doing the same, while their presidential hopeful advocates building a wall intended to keep out the very folks Pulse was aiming to create a safe space for. Do not condemn confused conservatives who are blaming this on radical Islam. If you are a straight ally, please do not write about the infuriating injustice of Orlando health centers being in desperate need of blood when the queer community is not permitted to donate it.

Queer people are already saying these things. (Hi.) Latinx people are saying these things. Muslim people are saying these things.

And while we’re at it, do not write an article or a Facebook post patting yourself on the back for not saying any of these things, because even that takes valuable space away from the marginalized people who this story is really about. This is the time for their voices to be heard, and for the rest of us to listen. This is the time for the authenticity of their lived experience and their communities’ history of collective trauma to radiate. This is a time to share their stories.

Surely NPR could have found better pieces to highlight than that one.

Oh gee, a new piece on Orlando that rivals Mariella Mosthof’s for terribleness.

When I read about Orlando, I was surrounded by straight people. Well meaning straight people, yes, allies, yes, but straight people all the same.

I was surrounded by straight people because I was at my house with my husband and my daughter. I spend a lot of time around straight people (thats what I get for marrying a cishet man), but I noticed it more today than I have any other morning. When I heard the news, I started counting down the time until I could be around queer people.

No doubt the apparent distaste for and disapproval of her own husband and daughter are meant partly facetiously, and yet…she’s basically serious.

Being a bi woman means occupying a lot of weird liminal space. In that way we are very queer….we don’t fit well into boxes. Too gay to be straight, too straight to be gay, we are often locked out of the resources and support meant for the queer community due to biphobia and erasure while being pornified and objectified by the patriarchal male gaze of heteronormative culture. It’s no wonder that bi women are suffering from such a serious mental health crisis.

Blah blah blah, me me me, aren’t I fascinating. Ima get to Orlando any minute now but first, note how fascinating I am.

Being bi comes with the double edged sword of “passing.” Because I’m married to a man, and because of my high femme gender presentation, most people will assume I am straight.

Oh no, she struggles under the crippling burden of…Assumed Straight. That must be awful.

But the horrible thing about “passing privilege” is the closeting, the erasure. And never have I felt that so keenly as I feel it today while I mourn Orlando.

Ah. Never has she felt the horror of “erasure” so keenly as now, because of the slaughter of 49 people in Orlando. Never has her sense of narcissistic injury bitten so deep as it has today when she makes Orlando somehow about her.

“Passing privilege combined” with bi erasure and femme invisibility means that unless I tell someone “I’m queer” they will probably assume I’m straight. It means that when I come out to people, they don’t get it, I don’t fit the narrative they are used to hearing. It means straight people make jokes about “Spring Break” or “Katie Perry”. It means straight men ask if they can watch. It means that people, both gay and straight, DON’T BELIEVE ME when I say I’m gay. It means coming out over and over and over and over again…sometimes to the same person. It means I get dragged back into the closet every damn day. It hurts every time, but today in light of this already bleeding wound, biphobia and erasure is excruciating.

It’s all.about.her.

Another turn of the screw.

The Orlando gunman’s wife has told federal agents she tried to talk her husband out of carrying out the attack, NBC News has learned.

Omar Mateen’s wife, Noor Zahi Salman, told the FBI she was with him when he bought ammunition and a holster, several officials familiar with the case said. She told the FBI that she once drove him to the gay nightclub, Pulse, because he wanted to scope it out.

Oh. Oh really. So she knew he was planning it but she didn’t tell anyone who could have stopped him. Well thanks a lot.

I’m seeing people say maybe she was abused, maybe she was too afraid to tell anyone. Maybe so but that’s a lot of people dead or injured because she kept his secret. I think she should have taken the chance.

Peak something – peak doing social justice wrong is perhaps the best description of it. Mariella Mosthof at Bustle says nearly everyone should say nothing at all about Orlando.

The title alone is terrible:

Dear White, Hetero, Cis People: Please Don’t Co-Opt This Tragedy

Excuse me? Co-opt?? It’s not co-opting to express grief and outrage, and it’s not some ideal opposite of co-opting to ignore terrible things that happen to other people. If only people who are neither white nor straight nor “cis” can talk about Orlando, few people would even know it had happened.

Then the first sentence is even worse:

If you are a cisgender, heterosexual, white person, please do not write about the largest mass shooting in American history, which took place this Sunday at a gay club called Pulse in Orlando during the venue’s Latino night.

Please do not write about it. Just like that. Shut up. Say nothing. Look away. Ignore it. Talk about baseball instead.

The hell I will. Don’t you dare tell me to ignore horrors inflicted on people for belonging to a despised group. Don’t tell me to ignore the children slaughtered in Peshawar or the college students slaughtered in Garissa or the churchgoers in Charleston or the cartoonists in Paris or the atheists in Bangladesh or the clubbers in Orlando. Don’t tell anyone to do that. Stop that shit right now.

Of course, share condolences, express how horribly you feel for the victims and their families, tell your queer Latinx friends that you love them, lend support. But please do not take it upon yourself to publicly point out the hypocrisy of Paul Ryan tweeting “thoughts and prayers” when the legislative agenda of his party actively marginalizes queer people all the time.

Why the fuck not?? Why wouldn’t I, why shouldn’t I? What’s this “do not take it upon yourself” shit? It’s not presumptuous to point out the hypocrisy of Paul Ryan; we all get to do that.

Please do not wax poetic about the outrage of Trump supporters doing the same, while their presidential hopeful advocates building a wall intended to keep out the very folks Pulse was aiming to create a safe space for. Do not condemn confused conservatives who are blaming this on radical Islam. If you are a straight ally, please do not write about the infuriating injustice of Orlando health centers being in desperate need of blood when the queer community is not permitted to donate it.

Queer people are already saying these things. (Hi.) Latinx people are saying these things. Muslim people are saying these things.

“Muslim people”? So Muslims get to talk about Orlando and atheists don’t? Non-Muslims don’t? Seriously?

And while we’re at it, do not write an article or a Facebook post patting yourself on the back for not saying any of these things, because even that takes valuable space away from the marginalized people who this story is really about. This is the time for their voices to be heard, and for the rest of us to listen. This is the time for the authenticity of their lived experience and their communities’ history of collective trauma to radiate. This is a time to share their stories.

Says Mariella Mosthof, in the act of doing exactly that – patting herself on the back for telling 99.99% of people to say nothing about Orlando.

That the largest mass shooting in American history was perpetrated in a queer space is not a designation that any of us wanted. Queer history is already so painful, so traumatic, so violent, and so unjust. We didn’t need this to make our point. But now that we have it, the least allies can do is let us make our point.

Chances are, queer voices, Latinx voices, and Muslim voices are already saying what you wish to express, and you will likely find that they are expressing it in a more articulate way than you are able to. Make the choice to share those voices instead of centering yours.

Except a lot of those voices are bound to be white or straight or “cis” or all three and you told all of them to shut up, remember?

Peak awful. Peak the worst.

Peter Tatchell on Facebook:

London vigil for Orlando victims 7pm tonight. Join us (details below). LGBT venues (and others) must step up security. Orlando is the tip of an iceberg of global anti-LGBT violence. Don’t demonise all Muslims. Best memorial to victims: US should ban semi-automatic weapons, repeal legal discrimination against LGBT people and require all schools to educate pupils against all hate, including against homophobia, biphobia and transphobia. Appalling Sky TV interview.

Gay and human rights campaigner, Peter Tatchell, will join tonight’s London vigil in commemoration and solidarity with the victims of the Orlando massacre. It commences at 7pm in the heart of the gay village, Old Compton Street, Soho, W1.

Commenting on the mass killings, Mr Tatchell, said:

“There was always a possibility that Islamist extremists would target gay communities in the West, whether as lone attackers or via organised terrorist cells. They have a pathological hatred of LGBT people, and also of Jews, secularists and liberal Muslims.

“This attack is a wake-up call to LGBT organisations and venues in the US, Britain and other Western countries to strengthen their vigilance. There is no room for the complacent and naive belief that Islamist fanatics will confine their killing of gay people to Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan.

“In the light of this attack, security needs to be increased at the London LGBT Pride parade on 25 June, and at other events that could be targeted in the UK, such as those involving the Jewish community, secularists and ex-Muslims.

“We condemn those who want to use this slaughter to demonise and scapegoat the Muslim community, the vast majority of whom deplore terrorism as much as everyone else and who have often been its victims, such as in the 9/11 and 7/7 outrages. Our thanks to the many Muslims who have spoken out against the Orlando killings and expressed their solidarity with the LGBT community.

“Some of the most fitting, lasting commemorations of the Pulse nightclub victims would be for the US to ban semi-automatic weapons, repeal legal discrimination against LGBT people and require all schools to educate pupils against all hate, including against homophobia, biphobia and transphobia.

“The condolences expressed by Florida Senator Marco Rubio smack of hypocrisy. He has repeatedly opposed gay equality, including wanting to repeal same-sex marriage and protection against discrimination for LGBT employees. His anti-gay stance has fanned the flames of homophobic hatred.

“The Orlando attack is an extreme example of the violence that happens on a daily basis to LGBT people all over the world. Thousands are killed, maimed and hospitalised every year by violent homophobic assailants, ranging from individuals, gangs and mobs, to organised political and religious zealots. Millions of LGBT people – especially in the Middle East, Africa, Latin America, Russia, Eastern Europe and Asia – live in daily fear of being beaten and even killed.

“Much of the LGBT community was appalled by the line of questioning by the interviewer on the Sky TV paper’s review last night. He seemed to downplay the fact that the Orlando slaughter was a specific, deliberate and targeted attack on gay people. If this had been a massacre of Jewish or Black people I doubt the interview would have been handled in the same insensitive way,” said Mr Tatchell.

See the Sky interview here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ITdjAb3VcE

Further information:

Peter Tatchell
Director, Peter Tatchell Foundation
Email: Peter@PeterTatchellFoundation.org
Web: www.PeterTatchellFoundation.org

Reuters reports that Mateen made his 911 call announcing his allegiance to the caliph during the attack, not before it as we were hearing yesterday.

The caliphate of course returned the favor.

Islamic State reiterated on Monday a claim of responsibility. “One of the Caliphate’s soldiers in America carried out a security invasion where he was able to enter a crusader gathering at a nightclub for homosexuals in Orlando,” the group said in a broadcast on its Albayan Radio.

Uh huh, it’s all very official – it was a legitimate, in fact the only legitimate state carrying out a “security invasion” – because what, the partiers at Pulse were a dangerous threat to Islamic State? Of course they were – so a legitimate state carries out a security invasion at a crusader gathering, to wit, “a nightclub for homosexuals in Orlando.” I’m not sure gay nightclubs are the first place I would go to look for crusaders.

The New York Times tells us a little about one of the Orlando victims on its live update page.

Eric Ivan Ortiz-Rivera, 36, was nicknamed Shaki and had been married to his husband for about a year, said his cousin, Orlando Gonzalez, 26.

Mr. Ortiz-Rivera lived in downtown Orlando, with his husband, and worked at a Party City and a Sunglasses Hut, Mr. Gonzalez said.

He had other passions: “He was very artistic,” Mr. Gonzalez said. “He was all about interior design. He actually knew how to cut hair and stuff. He was the one that everyone in the family” went to for design advice, Mr. Gonzalez said.

And, Mr. Gonzalez said, his cousin was “a goofball” who liked to dance.

“We always went to clubs together,” Mr. Gonzalez said, adding that his cousin liked house music, or “anything he could dance to, pretty much.”

Mr. Ortiz-Rivera went to Pulse on Saturday night, and never came home.

I hope he had a good goofball time last night, up until the end.

So this is horrifying.

The United West investigative team uncovered a story so disturbing Field Sutton of Channel 9 news in Orlando, FL broke the story on their newscast.

The Husseini Islamic Center, 5211 Hester Ave, Sanford, FL 32773, invited Sheikh Farrokh Sekaleshfar to speak at their Mosque. Dr. Sekaleshfar says the killing of homosexuals is the compassionate thing to do.

In a 2013 speech Sheikh Sekaleshfar said this regarding gays, “Death is the sentence. We know there’s nothing to be embarrassed about this, death is the sentence…We have to have that compassion for people, with homosexuals, it’s the same, out of compassion, let’s get rid of them now.”

The story is dated April 6. Two months ago.

Oh guess what. It turns out Omar Mateen wasn’t a nice quiet loving peaceful citizen even before he murdered over 50 people at Orlando’s largest gay bar and injured over 50 more; no, it turns out he was a violent abuser of – you’ll never guess – women.

The ex-wife of the 29-year-old man suspected of killing 50 people in a Orlando nightclub early Sunday said that he was violent and mentally unstable and beat her repeatedly while they were married.

The ex-wife said she met Omar Mateen online about eight years ago and decided to move to Florida and marry him.

At first, the marriage was normal, she said, but then he became abusive.

“He was not a stable person,” said the ex-wife, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because she feared for her safety in the wake of the mass shooting. “He beat me. He would just come home and start beating me up because the laundry wasn’t finished or something like that.”

He was a manly man, who didn’t put up with disobedience from women he owned, and lost his shit when he saw two men kissing.

The BBC is live updating the news from Orlando.

These are the main points from the second press briefing by officials in Orlando:

• 50 people killed, up from 20, making the Pulse nightclub attack the worst mass shooting in recent US history
• New death toll came after investigators were able to gain better access to the building – they had to ensure it was clear of devices
• 53 people were injured, many critically

Officials are saying the death toll will go up.

NBC news say they have spoken to the father of the suspected gunman by phone.

The man said: “We are saying we are apologising for the whole incident. We weren’t aware of any action he is taking. We are in shock like the whole country.

“This had nothing to do with religion.”

He added his son “got very angry when he saw two men kissing” months before in Miami.

Seek not to come between the dragon and his wroth.

So what does the lieutenant governor of Texas do? He composes a “reap what you sow” tweet and shares it with the sinful world.

At precisely 7 a.m. Sunday Dan Patrick tweeted a photo with the words of Galatians 6:7. The verse reads, “Do not be deceived: God cannot be mocked. A man reaps what he sows.”

That’s so horrific in so many ways. One, he’s a high official in a state government – the largest state in the country in fact, with a population of 27 million. Two, he’s saying the victims had it coming. Three, he’s citing “God.” Four, he’s more than hinting that the reason the victims had it coming is because God hates fags. Five, it’s cruel cruel cruel cruel, and wicked and bad and evil. The bad immoral wicked person in this story is not the one who is not heterosexual, it’s the fanatical sadist state official.

Allen Blakemore with Patrick’s office told the Dallas Morning News that the tweet was prescheduled and not a reaction to the shooting, noting, “This was certainly not done with any fore knowledge of the events of the day.”

Another verse was tweeted from the account 30 minutes later, this time from Psalm 37:39, which reads, “The Salvation of the righteous come from the Lord; He is their stronghold in time of trouble.”

State officials should keep their bible snippets to themselves.

Our Paris November 2015: 50 people killed in a mass shooting at a gay nightclub in Orlando.

Fifty people were killed inside Pulse, a gay nightclub, Orlando Police Chief John Mina and other officials said Sunday morning, just hours after a shooter opened fire in the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.

At least 53 more people were injured, Mina said. Police have shot and killed the gunman, he told reporters.

The shooter had an assault weapon.

Before Sunday, the deadliest shootings in U.S. history were at Virginia Tech in 2007 and Sandy Hook Elementary School in 2012, with 32 and 27 killed.

The three worst, in less than a decade. People think they’re in a movie, and the prize goes to the highest number.

The shooter is not from the Orlando area, Mina said. He has been identified as Omar Saddiqui Mateen, 29, of Fort Pierce, about 120 miles southeast of Orlando, two law enforcement officials tell CNN.

Orlando authorities said they consider the violence an act of domestic terror. The FBI is involved. While investigators are exploring all angles, they “have suggestions the individual has leanings towards (Islamic terrorism), but right now we can’t say definitely,” said Ron Hopper, assistant special agent in charge of the FBI’s Orlando bureau.

Authorities are also looking into the possibility the attack was a hate crime, a law enforcement source told CNN.

You don’t say.

“It’s just shocking,” said Christopher Hansen, who was inside Pulse. He heard gunshots, “just one after another after another. It could have lasted a whole song,” he said.

Hansen was getting a drink at the bar when he “just saw bodies going down,” he said.

When the shots erupted, he hit the ground, crawling on his elbows and knees, before he spotted a man who had been shot.

“I took my bandana off and shoved it in the hole in his back,” Hansen said, adding that he saw another woman who appeared to be shot in the arm.

The nightclub posted on its Facebook page shortly after the violence began: “Everyone get out of Pulse and keep running.”

Like the Bataclan.

Pulse describes itself as “the hottest gay bar” in the heart of Orlando. Hours before the shooting, the club urged party-goers to attend its “Latin flavor” event Saturday night.

Jovial, well-dressed crowds heeded the call in an event that turned into a nightmare.

“It was just, bang, bang, bang!” party-goer Hansen said of the gunfire.

Ricardo Negron Almodovar said he was in the club when the shooting started about 2 a.m. He barely escaped.

“People on the dance floor and bar got down on the floor and some of us who were near the bar and back exit managed to go out through the outdoor area and just ran,” he posted on the club’s Facebook page.

So very like the Bataclan – a festive fun heathen occasion, turned into a slaughterhouse by fanatics with guns.

(I know, we don’t know yet that he was a fanatic. Maybe he was just in a bad mood.)

The sound of gunshots echoed beyond the club.

Jose Torres was clocking in to work at a Dunkin’ Donuts across the street when he heard them.

“It was something that I never heard before,” Torres said. “I had to run inside the store, and I saw just a lot of people screaming, crying. Just screaming and coming out running like crazy.”

Torres said he ducked into the Dunkin’ Donuts and called 911 as several people dashed out of the club, bleeding. Police and SWAT teams rushed to the scene.

Welcome to nightmare world.