The Orlando, Edgewood and Belle Isle Police Departments have released new body camera footage from officers responding to the June 12, 2016 attack at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando. The videos have been edited to not show any of the victims who died in the attack.
The attack was carried out by 29-year-old Omar Mateen, who was shot and killed by Orlando Police after a three-hour standoff. Mateen killed 49 people and injured 53 others, according to The Washington Post.
According to the Orlando Sentinel, the officer who is shown entering the building at the beginning of the video is Officer Brandon Cornwell of the Belle Isle Police Department. Officer Cornwell takes cover behind a bar as other officers shout commands at gunman Omar Mateen. Mateen had cornered some survivors in a bathroom. Shots are fired, but officers did not hit Mateen, according to Orlando Police Chief John Mina. Officer Cornwell would later tell another officer:
I couldn’t see the guy. He came out of the left bathroom and we were stacked up, and the guys that were up front just started shooting right at him. And, he went back into the bathroom. As soon as he came out, I saw like a dark-colored shirt..and about that time they started firing at him, but I couldn’t open up on him.
The next video cuts to officers getting survivors out of the building. Officers repeatedly tell the patrons to “get your hands up”, as they try to sort out the situation. Next, we see officers checking on bodies of fallen victims. The officers check pulses to see who is dead and who needs medical attention.
In the last body camera video clip, a barrage of gunshots can be heard in the distance, in what is believed to be the final standoff between Mateen and police.
According to authorities, The Pulse nightclub shooting was the deadliest mass-shooting in U.S. history. It was the worst act of terrorism on American soil since Sept. 11, 2001, according to The New York Times.