Pulse Nightclub Shooting

On the night of June 11–12, 2016, Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida was hosting "Latin Night," a weekly event drawing a primarily Latino crowd, with roughly 320 patrons still inside near closing time. At approximately 2:02 a.m., 29-year-old Omar Mateen entered the club armed with a SIG Sauer MCX semi-automatic rifle and a 9mm Glock 17 pistol, bypassing an off-duty officer working security, and began shooting patrons. Within about five minutes he had fired approximately 200 rounds. Mateen retreated into a bathroom area, taking hostages, and held a standoff with police for roughly three hours.

During the attack, Mateen made a 911 call and additional calls to police negotiators and a local news station, in which he swore allegiance to ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, referenced the Boston Marathon bombers, and said the U.S. killing of ISIS commander Abu Waheeb the previous month had "triggered" the shooting. He told a negotiator to tell the U.S. government to stop bombing Iraq and Syria. The FBI classified the attack as an act of terrorism.

Police officers engaged Mateen multiple times during the standoff. At 5:02 a.m., after Mateen re-entered a bathroom and opened fire on hostages, officers used a controlled explosion and an armored vehicle to breach a wall of the building. Mateen was drawn into a hallway confrontation with officers at 5:14 a.m. and was shot eight times, dying at the scene; he was declared "down" at 5:17 a.m.

Forty-nine victims were killed, including 38 who died at the scene and eleven who died later at local hospitals; 58 others were injured, 53 by gunfire. Over 90% of the victims were of Hispanic background, about half of Puerto Rican descent, with additional Dominican and Mexican nationals among the dead. The attack was, at the time, the deadliest mass shooting by a single shooter in modern U.S. history and the deadliest attack targeting LGBTQ people in U.S. history, as well as the deadliest terrorist attack in the U.S. since September 11, 2001.

Mateen had been the subject of two prior FBI investigations, in 2013 and 2014, both of which were closed without findings that warranted further action. He had worked as a security guard since 2007 and held a valid Florida firearms license. His father, Seddique Mateen, said his son had grown angry after seeing a gay couple kiss months before the attack, though the FBI found no verified evidence that Mateen was gay or had frequented gay venues. In the aftermath, the City of Orlando, the FBI, and law enforcement agencies released transcripts, 911 calls, and body-camera footage over subsequent months, and multiple fundraising and victim-assistance efforts, including the OneOrlando Fund and Equality Florida's GoFundMe campaign, raised millions of dollars for survivors and victims' families. The City of Orlando later acquired the Pulse site for a permanent memorial.