When Omar Mateen entered the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida and killed 49 people, wounding 53 others, he became the most “successful” active shooter in documented history (until Paddock committed his attack in Las Vegas in 2017). He had approximately twice as many victims as Seung Hui Cho did at Virginia Tech and had managed to not only target a specific racial group (Latinos) but a specific sexual orientation group (LGBT) as well. Those characteristics of his victims combined with his obvious and documented commitment to jihad, especially since he said his attack was in retaliation for attacks committed by the U.S. in Iraq and Syria, made the mass murder at the Pulse one of the most televised and investigated attacks in recent times. Mateen’s attack on the Pulse was also one of the few documented incidents where the perpetrator called 9-1-1 numerous times giving his motivation for the attack. It is also one well documented active shooter event that switched from such to being a hostage barricade situation.
The incident started at approximately 2 a.m. in the morning of Sunday, June 12th. The Pulse nightclub had hosted Latin Night on that Saturday, June 11th and as such there were approximately 320 people in the club at the time Mateen began his attack. There was some indication that Mateen wasn’t even aware of the fact that the Pulse catered to a homosexual / gay crowd as he’s reported to have asked a security guard at the club where all the women were. It proved to be a mostly male crowd.
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The remainder of this article is part of the book "Active Killers and the Crimes They Perpetrated," available in print or ebook via Amazon.
