Fla. Sheriff`s Office Releases Pulse 911 Calls

Aug. 31--It was 3:30 a.m. on June 12 when a man called 911 in a panic. His ex-girlfriend was trapped in a bathroom at the Pulse nightclub, he said.

"My girlfriend's hiding in the club Pulse, where people are shot and dead and there's like 18 people hiding in the bathroom," he said. "Are you guys sending anybody there?"

The 911 dispatcher calmly explained that law enforcement officers were already clearing out rooms in the club. But they hadn't yet reached the bathroom where the man's ex-girlfriend was.

"They're all scared to death, and they all think they're gonna die," the caller said.

The Orange County Sheriff's Office released 20 911 calls on Tuesday from frantic family members and loved ones of people trapped inside the club.

Previously released records showed dispatchers also spoke with people inside the club. None of those recordings were released.

Tuesday's release did not include calls made to the Orlando Police Department that night by people in the club or by the shooter, Omar Mateen. Those recordings are tied up in a lawsuit between the city of Orlando and 27 news organizations, including the Orlando Sentinel.

Mateen was shot and killed by Orlando police officers after a three-hour standoff, during which some club-goers were trapped in a bathroom with him.

The attorney representing the Sentinel and other media organizations in the lawsuit said that Tuesday's release from the Orange County Sheriff's Office supports the argument that the calls are public records and should be released.

"It provides a better picture of the timeline ... and a better picture of the response," Rachel Fugate said.

The citizens of Orlando and the families of the victims deserve to know more about what happened, she said. Fugate challenged statements by Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, who has publicly said that he wants to release the records but has said he must comply with state and federal laws.

"The sheriff clearly had no problem releasing these records," Fugate said.

The first call to Orange County dispatch came one minute after the shooting started, at 2:03 a.m. A man said he was leaving the club when he heard "more than 10" gunshots.

"We were leaving the club and as soon as we left gunshots were going like crazy," he said.

He was not injured and said he saw numerous police officers around him. Orange County dispatchers tried to transfer him to Orlando police dispatch, but he twice got a busy signal.

Another caller, who worked across the street from the club, remained calm as she told two dispatchers she heard shots fired and, moments later, that police had arrived.

"I was told that the police are already there," the woman said. "And a shot just hit the door of the place that I'm working in."

In two other calls, a neighbor said he heard gunshots in the area, and another man who said he lived around the corner from the club said someone was knocking on his door.

About 2:40 a.m., another caller said she got a text from her brother.

"There's been a shooting and there's a lot of people dead," her brother's text read.

"I've been trying to text," she told the operator. "He said he can't talk."

The operator told her that if she reached her brother again, his priority was to stay safe.

Another man said he left the club before the shooting started, but his friends stayed behind.

"Once I got home, like 10 minutes later, I got calls from all my friends asking if I'm OK, what's happening," he said. "I called my friend, he told me he got shot, he's in the bathroom, he got shot three times. But I'm not there, I can't do nothing."

At 4:17 a.m., a woman called 911, reporting her brother was hiding inside a unisex bathroom with about 20 wounded people, four of whom were dead.

The woman asked the dispatcher what to tell her brother.

"They need to shelter themselves there [in the bathroom]," a dispatcher told the woman. "If he needs to put the phone down to keep himself safe, then that's what he needs to do."

The last call came into dispatch at 5:03 a.m -- right as Orlando Police SWAT team members breached a wall to get inside the club.

A man driving to Orlando with his wife told the dispatcher his son was shot and trapped in the bathroom.

"No one is going in for him," he sobbed, as the dispatcher assured him that law enforcement was on the scene.

People were wondering, he said, "Where's the ambulance? Where's the medics?"

Staff writers Janet Brindle Reddick, Paul Brinkmann, Elyssa Cherney, Sandy Csizmar, Caitlin Dineen, Caitlin Doornbos, David Harris, Susan Jacobson, Annie Martin, Leslie Postal, Bethany Rodgers, Jason Ruiter and Mary Shanklin contributed reporting.

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