Here’s a story of one of the people in the club that saved someone else’s life: http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-orlando-nightclub-rescue-20160612-snap-story.html
And another such story, about a former Marine who worked at the club as a bouncer:
It’s been reported the wife’s parents live in California.
The wife’s parents home was also searched by FBI.
I’m reading reports that Disney security reported this couple to FBI. The couple had been surveilling a Disney area.
Maybe the government needs to hire Disney security. They certainly seem to be able to pick out odd behavior in the midst of thousands of new visitors everyday. I’d say that is pretty impressive.
New is saying that if/when they charge her she will no longer be cooperating with information, and they prefer to get as much information as possible from her. They said that even if the Feds don’t charge her (and the news reports think they will) she could get charged by the state. Imagine there could be civil cases form victims families as well.
- News (not "new") is saying this. Sorry for typo/autocorrect!
I believe the wife was with him when disney contacted the FBI but his father is another one that is probably being watched closely. http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3637968/Father-America-s-deadly-mass-shooter-wanted-Afghan-president-job-TV-showed-support-Taliban.html
while not on the same level of the homophobic scale as saudi arabia and iran where gay people are executed this is upsetting.
http://www.newsday.com/news/world/jamaica-ag-gay-flag-at-u-s-embassy-disrespectful-1.11915094
@zobroward:
Jamaica in an official capacity is not as bad as saudi arabia, but societally in some ways you may as well have official executions for being gay, getting beaten up or killed there if you are suspected of being gay is not uncommon (several years ago a wildly popular song in Jamaica and in the Jamaican community in the US was a song celebrating someone figuring out someone was gay and killing them). The people there are pretty religious, and the churches they belong to are not exactly tolerant, and add that to poverty and ignorance and you have a pretty toxic mix.
“Respecting evil” is one of the things that gets us to these places.
@soccerguy315:
My guess about the guys motives are that he was conflicted about being gay (or bi), on one hand he had the tension of being gay while his cultural and religious background said that was an evil, horrible thing that made him a deviant and not a proper Muslim or Afghany, cultures that both say that the answer for gay people is to put them to death, so in his mind he might have made the compromise that to ‘reclaim’ his honor and whatnot, he had to kill gay people (and take that for what it is, speculation that in this world has no real meaning). Since ISIS proclaims itself to be 'true Muslims", by using their name he is rebranding himself so to speak as one of the faithful, fulfilling that mission…
In the end, was this organized Islamic terrorism? No, not really, nor was San Bernandino. Can we say this was not the result of “Islamic Terrorism with certainty”…no. Why? When we talk about the couple in San Bernandino, we talk about Islamic terrorism because they were inspired by ISIS, they apparently, to quote Obama “self radicalized”. With the Paris and other incidents in Europe, we are told that the perpetrators felt disaffected from society, felt outside the mainstream, and that ISIS and other radical groups recruited them based on this disaffection. When the terrorists bombed the WTC in 93, we were told that again they felt like outsiders, and that a radical Iman was able to get them to commit acts for “Islam”. The point being that whatever their underlying reasons were,homophobia, feeling outside mainstream society, whatever, that in the end what apparently drove them to their acts were the words and so forth of Radical Islam (in the current case, we don’t know how much influence that had; but the reports he also was casing Disney World tends to lend credence that he had been radicalized before doing what he did,given that attacking WDW had nothing to do with being gay). We will know more about the shooter, but I suspect they are going to find he had been reading ISIS websites and the like and that that was what likely drove him to shoot up the club. Islamic terrorism isn’t just about organized groups like Hezbollah or Isis or Al Qaeda, it is about what drives someone to commit a horrible act. Saying this was a troubled gay man is dismissing the reality that that may not have been his motive for shooting up the club alone, that in the end he decided ISIS and such were right and joined that war, whatever motivations led him to look there in the first place.
We are getting a little more detail here in Orlando. Here are couple of things I heard locally but not nationally. I may have misheard so please correct if you have better information.
Not seen reported on any news outlet, but Pulse is known to be frequently largely by blacks. The Latin nights attracted a different crowd. Did the shooter choose Latin night because he could fit in better or was there another reason. Consider the following:
The local news interviewed a young black woman who is still in the hospital due to her injuries, She stated that at one point the shooter asked if there were any blacks in the club, then went on to say blacks had done nothing to “his country” and America had already hurt blacks enough. I am sure I did not get all the wording correct, I would be interested if anyone else heard the young woman’s interview.
There have been discussions if the police moved quick enough. This is what I heard reported directly from an OPD spokesperson:
The shooter was engaged by and exchanged fire with an uniformed off-duty OPD officer. When the officer was not able to immediately stop the shooter he called the situation in. Several officers from the immediate area responded and they entered the club and confronted the shooter. Apparently their action caused the shooter to take hostages and retreat to the restroom. These officers were not SWAT team members with body armor and automatic weapons but patrol officers who may had bullet-proof vests at best and their side arms. It took incredible bravery and dedication to take on someone with an assault rifle and their action certainly saved many lives.
At that point it turned to a hostage situation and there was a delay as the SWAT team (Orange County Sherriff’s Office) developed and implemented a rescue plan. What seems to be lost is the OPD entered the club during this time to rescue survivors. The OPD spokesman also mentioned they had an officer enter the club “under cover” to scout the shooter’s position.
Hopefully the whole story will come out once the FBI finishes their investigation, which is estimated to take another 7 - 11 days.
Also, a city wide prayer service, attended by the mayor and other officials was held at the city’s largest Baptist church.
There was also a tribute to Christina Grimmie
The interview with the young black woman is all over the papers and TV with his comments about blacks. One of her friends bled to death from a wound to her arm while the stand off was taking place.
I saw the article about the ex marine who was a bouncer at the club, the “Marine Times” had a front page piece talking about him proudly, which was cool on many grounds. I also had a chuckle thinking about inter service rivalry, probably there are Navy Seals and ex Seals reading about what the guy did, and saying “if that guy had been an ex Seal, the he would have taken the shooter out with one hand while taking care of a drunk patron simulataneously” lol.
Actually, the Ex Marine bouncer does have an interesting lesson to it. In other threads we talked about why the patrons didn’t rush the shooter, or about what if others in the club had been armed. From what I read about the Marine, he saved 70 lives by getting a door open and getting people out that way, the account I read said that the people were in front of the door and were panicked and couldn’t figure out what to do. The Marine guy had presence of mind in all the chaos to force open the door and get people out. It seems so simple thinking about this, the door was likely some sort of emergency exit and probaby had an exit sign on it, yet of all the people apparently in the area of the door, none could figure out how to try and get it open and get out, it is what I was talking about in my posts, when you have chaos like that expecting ordinary people to be able to coldly figure out what to do, like taking down the shooter without killing someone else (for example, someone who is likewise armed and might be a confederate of the shooter or might not).
You never know how people are going to react. On the other hand, my wife showed me an article about when UCLA was locked down, apparently many of the doors on classrooms and such there have no locks, and the kids figured out all kinds of clever ways to lock down the doors, some of which could win a Rube Goldberg award for engineering:)
Wonder how many of the non old geezers in this crowd will know who Rube Goldberg is?? Am now having a flashback to my favorite board game: Moustrap.
Thanks for the momentary fun memory, @musicprnt
The alleged comment by the killer that America has hurt black people enough seems to conflict with the reports of former co-workers that he was continually making horrible racist, homophobic and anti-Semitic comments about black people, gay people, and Jews. So I don’t know what to think.
The ex marine was a local boy. Our paper had a very good article on him in today’s paper.
http://www.timesunion.com/local/article/Orlando-hero-a-Niskayuna-graduate-8134694.php
@DonnaL Yes, but his homophobic comments contradicted the amount of time he spent in Orlando area gay bars. Is does not seem like it would take three years to stake out a night club, especially considering simplicity of his plan.
I have no idea what to think either,
CaucAsian Dad, I think that can be explained by what seems to have been a classic case of internalized homophobia.