{"id":77241,"date":"2016-06-12T21:31:39","date_gmt":"2016-06-13T01:31:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/?p=77241"},"modified":"2016-06-12T21:31:39","modified_gmt":"2016-06-13T01:31:39","slug":"another-night-drinking-dancing-shots-began","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/2016\/06\/12\/another-night-drinking-dancing-shots-began\/","title":{"rendered":"Another night of drinking and dancing, until the shots began"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"It<\/a>
It was supposed to be just a night of dancing and drinking, of looking good and gleefully partying into the early morning hours. (Twitter photo<\/a>)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

ORLANDO, Fla.\u2014Like young people in clubs the world over, Jon Alamo met up with some friends, and then some more friends. He danced in Pulse’s main room, where people swayed to the beat of salsa music. Then Alamo drifted into the club’s two other rooms, which grooved to more of a hip-hop vibe. He remembers hearing Rihanna’s \u201cWork,\u201d one of his favourite songs, and grinding to it on the dance floor.<\/p>\n

It was supposed to be just a night of dancing and drinking, of looking good and gleefully partying into the early morning hours. It was Latin night at Pulse, one of Orlando’s top gay venues, and two drag performers were scheduled to perform, one of them a big draw for appearing on a season of the TV show \u201cRuPaul’s Drag Race.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI was in the zone,\u201d Alamo recalled. \u201cI wasn’t even paying attention\u2014just dancing.\u201d<\/p>\n

The 22-year-old clothing store sales clerk had arrived at the club at 10:30 p.m. Saturday, clad all in blue from his button-down shirt adorned with palm trees to his loafers. About three and a half hours later, the gunshots began and the first of at least 50 people began to die.<\/p>\n

Residents of the Delaney Court condos next door to Pulse first heard the shooting about 2:03 a.m. Marlon Massey was watching the movie \u201cCreed\u201d when he heard \u201cpop, pop, pop!\u201d He checked his phone for the time: The shots went on until 2:05 a.m.<\/p>\n

A uniformed Orlando Police officer working at the club off-duty had heard gunshots himself and spotted Omar Mateen outside the club. He fired his gun at the 29-year-old security guard from Fort Pierce, Florida, and two other officers quickly joined in. Mateen was not armed lightly: Police said he had an AR-15 assault-type rifle, a handgun and an explosive device.<\/p>\n

Undeterred, he re-entered the club.<\/p>\n

Inside, those on the dance floor weren’t sure if what they heard was just part of the DJ’s set.<\/p>\n

\u201cEveryone was getting on the floor. … I thought it was just part of the music, until I saw fire coming out of his gun,\u201d patron Rose Feba explained to the Orlando Sentinel.<\/p>\n

Mina Justice was sound asleep when she received the first text from her son, Eddie Justice, who was in the club.<\/p>\n

\u201cMommy I love you,\u201d the first message said. It was 2:06 a.m.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn club they shooting.\u201d<\/p>\n

It was around this time that Alamo wandered back into the main room.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe was holding a big weapon,\u201d Alamo said. \u201cHe had a white shirt and he was holding the weapon … you ever seen how Marine guys hold big weapons, shooting from left to right? That’s how he was shooting at people.\u201d<\/p>\n

Alamo dashed toward the back of one of the smaller dance rooms, and said people then rushed to an area where two bouncers had knocked down a wooden fence to create an escape route.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy first thought was, ‘Oh my God, I’m going to die,\u201d Alamo said, his voice very quiet. \u201cI was praying to God that I would live to see another day. I couldn’t believe this was happening.\u201d<\/p>\n

At 2:09 a.m., Pulse posted a chilling, hurried message on its Facebook page: \u201cEveryone get out of pulse and keep running.\u201d<\/p>\n

Brand White and his cousin were on the dance floor in the main room when White’s cousin yelled to him, \u201cB, it’s a guy with a bomb!\u201d Before he knew it, White was hit in the shoulder.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll of a sudden it just started like a rolling thunder, loud and everything went black,\u201d White wrote in a Facebook message to an Associated Press reporter from his hospital room Sunday. \u201cI think I was trampled.\u201d<\/p>\n

He didn’t recall leaving the club, but he remembered the state he was in: \u201cCovered head to toe in blood.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI remember screaming and mass chaos,\u201d he wrote. \u201cThere were hundreds of people there.\u201d<\/p>\n

He made it to the hospital, where he got a blood transfusion. As Sunday wore on, his cousin remained missing.<\/p>\n

Brett Rigas and his partner also were dancing in the main room when they heard the crack of gunfire. \u201cAbout 70 bullets,\u201d Rigas described in a terse Facebook message.<\/p>\n

He was shot in the arm and a man next to him was struck in the leg before police entered the room.<\/p>\n

\u201cI was behind the bar with four other people under the well. They called out to us and had us run out,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Rigas saw dead bodies as he barrelled out of the club. In the rush to escape, he became separated from his partner, who remained unaccounted for.<\/p>\n

Three patrons, including a performer, ran to the nearby home of club regular David \u201cBrock\u201d Cornelius. Cornelius had gone to a different bar Saturday night and wasn’t yet home, but he texted them his garage code and they hid in his house.<\/p>\n

Police said a dozen or so other patrons took cover in a restroom.<\/p>\n

At 2:39 a.m., Eddie Justice texted his mother from the bathroom, pleading for her to call police:<\/p>\n

\u201cCall them mommy<\/p>\n

Now.\u201d<\/p>\n

He’s coming<\/p>\n

I’m gonna die.\u201d<\/p>\n

Justice asked her son if anyone was hurt and which bathroom he was in.<\/p>\n

\u201cLots. Yes,\u201d he responded at 2:42 a.m.<\/p>\n

The last text she received from Eddie was at 2:50 a.m. She still hasn’t heard from her son.<\/p>\n

\u201cAll I heard was gunfire after gunfire,\u201d Brandon Wolf, who was in a restroom hiding, told the Sentinel. \u201cEventually, I thought you were supposed to run out of ammunition. But it just kept going and going,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

What happened in the three hours after the shooting broke out and the gunman was killed was not immediately clear.<\/p>\n

As people lay dying in the club, the shooting developed \u201cinto a hostage situation,\u201d Orlando Police Chief John Mina said.<\/p>\n

Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer said that officers initially mistakenly thought the gunman had strapped explosives to some of his victims after a bomb robot sent back images of a battery part next to a body. That held paramedics up from entering the club until it was determined the part had fallen out of an exit sign or smoke detector, the mayor said.<\/p>\n

The robot was sent in after SWAT team members used explosive charges and an armoured vehicle to knock down a wall down in an effort to access the club.<\/p>\n

About 5 a.m., a decision was made to rescue the remaining club-goers, who authorities said likely were in one of the smaller dance rooms, the Adonis Room. Law enforcement officers used two explosive devices to try to distract the killer and then 11 officers stormed the club and exchanged gunfire with Mateen.<\/p>\n

The explosives jolted some Pulse neighbours awake, including Dorian Ackerman, 28, who noted that it was just after 5 a.m.<\/p>\n

\u201cI heard a woman screaming,\u201d he said. \u201cIt was really terrifying.\u201d<\/p>\n

The gunman started firing, hitting an officer who was saved by protective armour.<\/p>\n

\u201cThat’s when we took him down,\u201d the mayor said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

ORLANDO, Fla.\u2014Like young people in clubs the world over, Jon Alamo met up with some friends, and then some more …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":33,"featured_media":77242,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,17],"tags":[11209,5790,11211,11208,11206,11207,11210],"class_list":["post-77241","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","category-news-w","tag-gun-violence","tag-lgbtq","tag-mass-shooting","tag-nightclub-shooting","tag-orlando","tag-pulse","tag-pulse-orlando","mauthors-tamara-lush","mauthors-jason-dearen","mauthors-michael-schneider","mauthors-the-associated-press"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77241","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/33"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=77241"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/77241\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/77242"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=77241"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=77241"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/canadianinquirer.net\/v1\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=77241"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}