The city of Orlando released hundreds of pages of documents Tuesday related to the mass shooting at Pulse nightclub, where Omar Mateen shot and killed 49 people, and injured dozens of others before being killed in a standoff with police.
So far, 18 pages of text messages to and from Orlando Police Chief John Mina have been released, but those messages were unrelated to the investigation.
Those messages are still being withheld because of the active investigation by the FBI and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
Mina received dozens of text messages from local and out-of-town law enforcement officers and agencies, praising the way that he and Orlando police handled the crisis during and after the shooting at the gay club.
The department also received critique of its response, from people wondering why it took nearly three hours to bring the shooter down
Police logs in the documents detail the step-by-step process officers took in their response to the shooting.
Mina’s account of a ceasefire while the gunman was trapped is in sync with what the computer-aided dispatch, or CAD, records show -- that once police forced the killer to retreat into a bathroom, the gunfire stopped, which allowed the rescue of dozens of people ahead of the final confrontation.
2:02 a.m. June 12
First 911 call was made.
2:08 a.m. June 12
Within three minutes of the first call, CAD records show police sent a team in.
In the next 45 seconds, seven calls came in about heavy gunfire.
2:05 a.m. June 12
A woman reports she is hiding in a closet. She can’t see what’s going on, but is hearing multiple gun shots.
The logs show people were seriously bleeding and some were not completely alert inside Pulse.
But outside, the Orlando Fire Department’s lot shows victims being brought to a nearby fire station and businesses near the club.
2:09 a.m. June 12
First officers make entry inside the building.
Forty-two seconds later, the dispatcher heard 20-30 shots over an open line.
“My caller is no longer responding,” the CAD report said, followed with, “open line with moaning.”
2:10 a.m.- 2:15 a.m. June 12
Constant calls reporting gunfire.
2:15 a.m. June 12
An Orlando police lieutenant reported, “Shooter trapped in bathroom” with 10 other people inside.
Gunshots were reported for another four minutes.
2:25 a.m. June 12
Victim in bathroom whispering, “please help” over the phone.
2:40 a.m. June 12
The shooter calls 911 and pledges allegiance to the Islamic state.
2: 54 a.m. June 12
“Shooter is saying he is a terrorist and has several bombs strapped to him,” the CAD report said.
At this point, the standoff began between the shooter and police.
About two hours after the standoff started, with Orlando police forcing the gunman to retreat into one of the bathrooms at Pulse, police dispatch heard that the gunman had bombs strapped to him and that he was reloading his guns.
Minutes later, callers trapped inside with him were worried he was about to start shooting again.
A half-hour before the final shootout between the OPD’s SWAT team and the killer, he claimed he was going to strap explosives onto four people and set them off in 15 minutes.
That’s when the SWAT team decided to end the standoff negotiations and go in.
5:14 a.m. June 12
Shots were fired inside the bathroom.
5:15 a.m. June 12
A report of possible explosives inside.
Seconds later, the shooter was down.
Less than an hour after the rescue operation, at about 6 a.m., officers took bomb dogs from OPD, UCF, and GOAA to sweep the Parliament House and Southern Nights, two other nearby gay clubs, to make sure those locations were safe.
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On CNN Monday night, Mina spoke about his officer’s response.
“Officers contained him. There were no shots being fired after our exchange of gunfire with him,” Mina said. “So, for all that time, there were no shots being fired. Our officers had him contained in the bathroom and, certainly in my opinion, if they had assaulted the bathroom at that time, not only would we be dealing with many more lives lost, but we would also be dealing with officers’ lives that would have been taken.”
