2016 Orlando Nightclub Shooting

Overview

2016 Orlando Nightclub Shooting was a mass shooting carried out by a lone gunman at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, which resulted in the deaths of 49 patrons and wounded 53 others on June 12th, 2016. The killing spree has been classified by the authorities as an act of domestic terrorism carried out in allegiance to the Islamic State (IS), making it the deadliest mass shooting and hate crime against LGBT community in modern United States history, as well as the deadliest terrorist attack on American soil since the September 11 attacks in 2001.

Background

At around 2:00 a.m. (EDT) on June 12th, 2016, Omar Mir Seddique Mateen, a 29-year-old Afghan American armed with a rifle and a handgun, entered Pulse Orlando^[3], a gay nightclub started in 2004 to promote LGBT awareness in the area, and began shooting at an estimated crowd of 320 patrons. Shortly after Mateen began shooting, an Orlando Police Department (OPD) officer working extra duty at the nightclub returned fire. He was soon joined by other officers arriving on the scene, leading the gunman to take hostages and retreat further into the club. At 2:22 a.m., Mateen made a 911 emergency call in which he pledged allegiance to the jihadist militant organization ISIL and referenced Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, the brothers responsible for the Boston Marathon bombings in 2013. At around 5:00 a.m., the hours-long standoff ended after the SWAT teams entered the club and successfully took down Mateen in the gunfight. At 5:53 a.m., the authorities confirmed Mateen's death.

Developments

Online Reaction

At around 2:09 a.m., nine minutes after the shooting began, the club posted a bulletin via its Facebook page, urging "everyone get out of Pulse and keep running." At 3:34 a.m., Redditor Hazier started a discussion post about the developing story on /r/news^[5], at which point only 20 fatalities had been made public and the identity of the shooter remained at large. In addition, Facebook responded by setting up a Safety Check feature^[21] allowing users in the affected area to mark their status, while a handful of pro-LGBTQ and anti-gun violence hashtags began trending on Twitter, including #OrlandoUnited^[16], #LoveIsLove^[17], #GunControlNow^[18], #StopTheHate^[19] and #PrayForOrlando.^[20]

Reddit Censorship Controversy

As more details about the massacre surfaced throughout the afternoon on June 12th, a megathread^[6] was established on /r/news^[6] to aggregate the latest updates, though many participants in the thread subsequently became subject to heavy moderation of comments and bans from the subreddit as they began citing early news reports that the shooter is likely a Muslim American of Afghan descent. Several Redditors' complaints about mass censorship of discussions relating to the shooter's identity quickly spread beyond /r/news to other subreddits, including /r/The_Donald,^[7] before it was picked up by The Daily Caller^[8] in an article titled "Reddit Bans Users, Deletes Comments That Say Orlando Terrorist Was Muslim."

As more concerns came up over the /r/news moderation team, such as discovering deleted comments containing information for things like blood donation,^[22] a thread was made to discuss and respond to them by moderator hoosakiwi.^[23] In it, it claimed that the perceived censorship was due to an overly exuberant reaction to brigading, vote manipulation, and the sheer amount of information being posted; as well as the automod responding to "already submitted" content.

John Oliver Tweet

In the morning after the attack, a image purporting to be a tweet from comedian John Oliver asking people to "think of all the GOOD things Islam has given us" spread on social media. Although the image is doctored, the image has stirred outrage against the comedian on sites like Reddit and 4chan.

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Fundraising Efforts

The massacre immediately sent shock waves across the mainstream news and social media in the United States, prompting a nationwide debate concerning Islam, gun control and LGBTQ rights. By early evening on June 12th, Florida-based LGBT advocacy group Equality Florida had raised over $480,000 for the victims via GoFundMe^[14] in six hours. By noon on June 13th, the online fundraiser had accrued more than $1.6 million.

News Media Coverage

Within hours of the first shot, major U.S. cable and print news outlets^{[3][4][9][10][11][12][13]} began providing live coverage of the mass shooting as the standoff between Mateen and OPD officers remained in progress.

Official Responses

By early morning on June 12nd, President Barack Obama released an official statement on live television condemning the mass shooting as "an act of terror and hate" (shown below).

After the shooting, employees of Disney World, Universal Parks & Resorts, SeaWorld and other Central Florida theme parks took to social media to show their support for the victims and their families^[24][25][26]. They involved from various show casts, performers and characters as they formed heart signs with their hands and arms. On June 12, 2016, theme park veteran Kevin O'Brien compiled these photos on his Facebook account^[27].

Social Media History

In the following week, numerous details about Mateen's online activities were uncovered by journalists^[28][29] and federal investigators^[30], including undated selfies he had uploaded to MySpace and other social media accounts before they were take down, as well as witness accounts that he had used several online dating apps for gay men, including Jack'd, Grindr and Adam4Adam.

According to the U.S. Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs^[30], its investigators were able to recover some of Mateen's activities from at least five Facebook accounts thought to be associated him, including his Facebook search queries for "Pulse Orlando" and "shooting" on the day of the attack, a friendship request to an owner of a large gay club in Florida and a chilling message he posted on one of his accounts during the hostage crisis after the shooting began:

"The real muslims will never accept the filthy ways of the west.

"America and Russia stop bombing the Islamic state.. I pledge my allegiance to abu bakr al Baghdadi
..may Allah accept me."

You kill innocent women and children by doing us airstrikes..now taste the Islamic state [sic] vengeance"

"In the next few days you will see attacks from the Islamic State in the usa."

In addition, Wisconsin Republican Senator Ron Johnson, the chairman of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Government Affairs, sent a letter to Mark Zuckerberg requesting all data associated with Mateen's known Facebook accounts, including activity logs, timeline information, private messages, photos and posts.

Father's FBI Connection

Following the shooting and death of the shooter Omar Mateen, officials placed his wife, Noor Salman on trial for "providing material support to a foreign terrorist organization and obstruction for justice." Prosecutors believe that she may have known parts of the Mateen's panning and failed to notify authorities. She has pleaded not guilty.^[31]

Saleman's lawyers filed for a mistrial after new details from prosecutors revealed that the father of Omar Mateen, Seddique Mateen, was an FBI informant, working as a confidential source between January 2005 and June 2016. He is currently under a criminal investigation for money transfers to Turkey and Afghanistan. This investigation was triggered by documents found in his home on the day of the Pulse shooting.

Salman's attorneys wrote that the FBI is unfairly targeting Salman for failure to recognize the potential threat of Seddique Mateen and his son. Furthermore, they believe that because the prosecution failed to inform them of the father's connection to the FBI, they should be granted a mistrial. That motion has been denied.^[32]

They wrote:

"1) Omar Mateen and his father, rather than Ms. Salman, conspired to support ISIS; or 2) the FBI's focus on Ms. Salman was based on its own motive to avoid responsibility for its failures with its own informant, Seddique Mateen, as well as his son."

Criticism

In 2016, fomer-FBI director James Comey told reporters, "We first became aware of [Mateen] in 2013, while he was working as a security guard at a local courthouse. He made inflammatory and contradictory statements about terrorism that raised concern with his coworkers, and claimed family connections to al-Qaida."^[33]

During the trial, FBI Special Agent Juvenal Martin, who was directly responsible for Seddique Mateen, corroborated this story. He said that coworkers of Omar Mateen had reported him for comments he made about connections to terrorist organizations.

Martin testified that during their first interview, Omar had told him that he made the comments because he felt harassed at work. Martin advised him to go to his human resources department. Martin continued to testify that Seddique Mateen told Martin "something like," "If [Omar Mateen] had done those things he was being stupid."^[34]

Online, people on the left and right have criticized the FBI for the failure to recognize Mateen's threat (examples below). However, some see this as a means of discrediting James Comey and Robert Mueller, special counsel in the Russigate investigation. The Daily Dot^[35] write, "Special Counsel Robert Mueller served as FBI director until 2013 and was replaced by Comey. Both men have found themselves on the wrong side of President Donald Trump and his supporters. Mueller, for his investigation into potential Trump campaign collusion with Moscow, and Comey, who was fired by the president last May after leading multiple investigations related to the 2016 election."

Search Interest

External References