Orlando posed challenges to cops
Rescues, bombing threats complicated June 12 rampage
ORLANDO, Fla. — As the hours ground on and the death toll mounted, Orlando Torres wondered when the police would come to rescue him and others trapped by the gunman who had stormed the Pulse nightclub.
The 52-year-old would later recall thinking, “What’s taking them so long?”
The question has been asked by many in the days following the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.
Omar Mateen launched his attack at the gay nightclub around 2 a.m., yet the ordeal didn’t end until three hours later.
But police insist that during those three hours, they were rescuing clubgoers and employees and trying to assess whether the gunman’s boasts — he claimed to have an explosive vest — were real.
In an interview, the commander of the Orlando Police Department SWAT team described the challenges they faced and how they made key decisions June 12.
“There was never a time we were sitting there twiddling our thumbs,” said Capt. Mark Canty of the SWAT team.
An off-duty police officer working as a security guard had traded gunfire with the shooter at the entrance to the club and called for backup.
It’s not clear why the off-duty officer didn’t pursue the gunman into the club, Canty said, but it’s not surprising.
“That officer is by himself and doesn’t know how many people are involved. The guy is obviously armed with more advanced weaponry,” Canty said.
Mateen had a handgun and a Sig Sauer MCX assault-style rifle.
Some patrol officers responded to the call and traded gunfire with the shooter at the front of the club, Canty said.
“That’s kind of what drove him into the bathrooms, and that allowed the officers to come in and remove some people who were inside from the main part of the club,” he said.
After the gunman retreated to the bathrooms, where more than 20 patrons had crammed themselves into the stalls, Canty and other police began to position themselves outside the building.
An Orange County sheriff’s office bomb squad was on the way, and Canty asked the commander to prepare an explosive to break through a wall of the club to reach hostages.
But he said they didn’t sit around waiting.
“We were actually trying to rescue people,” he said. And they did. “There was a group in a dressing room. They were kind of isolated from where the shooter was, and we were able to get them out a door on the north side of the building,” Canty said. Outside, officers helped punch holes in a fence so people who had reached a patio could escape.
The club manager was in touch with employees trapped in another dressing room with an air conditioning unit in the wall. “We were able to get that air conditioning unit out and get them out,” he said. About a dozen people were freed from the two dressing rooms.
Explosives were a major concern.
Shortly before 5 a.m., the gunman called 911 with a threat.
“He talked about putting vests on the hostages and sending them out to the four corners of the club,” Canty said. Mateen claimed to have a vest for himself too, according to police. And the gunman said he’d take action in 15 minutes.
When Mateen made the call, Canty was at the command post a few blocks from the club with Orlando police Chief John Mina.
They reviewed the plan to rescue the hostages, and Mina made the call to use the explosive to break through a wall of the club.
The first explosion didn’t quite break the wall, so the SWAT team used an armored, Humvee-style Bear-Cat vehicle to ram it, Canty said.
“The hole was in the wrong spot. It was in the hall between the two bathrooms. So they attempted to make a second hole,” he said.
When officers heard gunshots inside, they hurled in some nonlethal explosive flash-bang devices to divert the shooter and then rammed the wall a few more times, finally breaking into one of the bathrooms where the hostages were trapped with the gunman.
That’s when the SWAT team faced off with Mateen and killed him.
The team freed more than 20 hostages. Still uncertain whether Mateen had acted alone, officers searched the group for weapons. They also sent a robot to inspect the gunman’s corpse to ensure no explosives were strapped to the body.
As the investigation unfolded, police eventually would find 50 people dead, including the gunman, and 53 injured.