Recordings capture frantic 911 callers
“I don’t want to die,” 12-year-old Syniah Giles can be heard saying while her mother is on the phone with a 911 dispatcher.
“Baby, you’re okay. You’re not going to die,” her mother, tells the girl.
“Hurry up. You’ve got to hurry up,” Natalie Giles tells the dispatcher.
Her call is among 39 released Thursday made after the May 24 shootings at Louie’s Grill & Bar, 9401 N Lake Hefner Drive.
In the 49-minute recording, shaken and panicked callers — many of them in hiding — report what they know in the first few minutes after the shooting.
Several calls come from inside the restaurant, including one from an assistant manager and a panicked woman who is hiding underneath a table inside the restaurant.
In the call from the assistant manager, multiple rounds of gunfire are heard, presumably the moment when two bystanders opened fire on Alexander Tilghman, 28. It also includes the moment when the assistant manager finds out that the wounded are taking refuge in the women’s restroom.
One man tells the dispatcher he’s celebrating his 61st birthday at the restaurant. He says he saw a woman come in holding her stomach, then run away. Then he reports more gunfire.
Several callers describe Tilghman as wearing ear protection or headphones. All who saw the shooter describe him as a white man wearing a white shirt.
Syniah Giles’ sister also called 911 while hiding in the restroom and waiting for paramedics to arrive. During the call, dispatchers transfer her to Emergency Medical Services Authority. The phone rings six times without answer and ends.
On one call, a panicked woman never speaks into the phone, but instead honks her horn and screams at other drivers while apparently trying to flee the shooting scene.
On another, a woman calls from the rocks surrounding a nearby lighthouse where she and about 20 other people hunkered down and hid while awaiting police.
The callers include customers at the adjacent Mama Roja Mexican restaurant and motorists who happened by as Tilghman began shooting.
The shortest calls only last a matter of seconds, and multiple recordings included are calls back from dispatchers to 911 hang-ups and dropped calls.
In the moments after the shooting, bystanders Juan Carlos Nazario, 35, and Bryan Whittle, 39, ran to the trunks of their vehicles to retrieve handguns then ran toward Tilghman. Both men fired at Tilghman, who was pronounced dead at the scene.
A medical examiner’s report released Thursday states Tilghman died of multiple gunshot wounds. The manner of death is homicide, the medical examiner reported.