Judge asked to dismiss Pulse victims’ civil rights lawsuit

The city of Orlando is asking a federal judge to dismiss a civil rights lawsuit filed on the behalf of victims and survivors of the 2016 mass shooting at Pulse nightclub.

The suit was filed in June. It accuses Orlando police Det. Adam Gruler, who was working an extraduty shift at the club, of failing to intervene to stop gunman Omar Mateen’s rampage.

The suit also claims that Orlando police unlawfully detained Pulse survivors for hours after the massacre was over.

When Mateen walked into the club and began shooting 2:02 a.m. June 12, 2016, Gruler fired at him from two different spots outside Pulse, but did not enter the club to pursue the shooter.

Additional officers arrived within minutes, but police didn’t enter the club until 2:08 a.m. — by which time Mateen had fired more than 200 rounds, according to Orlando police estimates.

“Entering the club to neutralize Shooter would have in fact been risking his life, but that was Gruler’s job,” the suit claims — adding Gruler “lost his nerve” and chose his own safety.

But a motion filed Friday by lawyers for Gruler and the city argues Gruler’s reaction to the sudden violence at Pulse doesn’t constitute a violation of the victims’ right to due process.

The Constitution’s Due Process Clause “simply does not require a lone police officer to enter a building and ‘neutralize’ an active shooter armed with an assault rifle,” the motion says.

The motion cites rulings from cases filed after the 1999 massacre of 13 people at Columbine High School, which sided with officers accused of failing to intervene before or during the killings.

“The situation at Pulse, like Columbine, was a ‘volatile emergency situation the scope and nature of which was unprecedented,’” lawyers for the city and Gruler argue in the motion to dismiss.

Forty nine people were killed and were dozens injured in the mass shooting at Pulse, a nightclub on Orange Avenue. Dozens of victims and survivors are listed as plaintiffs in the lawsuit.

Orlando police Chief John Mina has defended Gruler’s response to the shooting, and a report commissioned by the U.S. Department of Justice said local authorities performed strongly.

FILE PHOTO Survivors of the Pulse nightclub shooting and family members of nine of the 49 people killed file a federal lawsuit against Orlando police officers and the city, saying they violated club patrons’ civil rights by not immediately entering the building to confront the gunman.