'If you're alive, raise your hand' desperate rescuer said in Pulse nightclub
The newly released presentation provides a comprehensive timeline of events.
— -- “If you’re alive, raise your hand.”
That is what officers responding to the ISIS-inspired shooting at Orlando’s Pulse nightclub instructed people to do when they came upon the horrific massacre that left dozens dead.
Twenty victims died where they were dancing. Thirteen more died in bathrooms, where they hid from the gunman.
These are just some of the newly-released facts about the shooting that left 50 people dead in June that were shared in a presentation from the Orlando Police Department that has been obtained and reviewed by ABC News.
The report includes the most comprehensive timeline of the night as well as never-before-seen photos from inside the club. Many of the photos were taken from police officers’ body cams.
The timeline details how shooter Omar Mateen barricaded himself in the club’s northwest bathroom with other victims who used text messages to plead for help. Meanwhile, it also explains how officers were able to remove other victims from other parts of the nightclub.
The report states that at 2:48 a.m., Mateen spoke with officers via phone, and told the officers that he was wearing a bomb vest and had enough explosives in his vehicle parked outside "to take out city blocks."
The presentation also describes where each of the 49 victims died -- nine people inside the northwest bathroom, four in the southwest bathroom, three on the stage, one in the club’s front lobby, one on the patio and 20 on the stage area and dance floor.
An additional nine people died at the hospital and two at a triage area across from the club, according to the presentation.
The report describes how “officers are seen loading numerous critical victims onto the bed of the pickup truck transporting victims,” because the fire department was so “overwhelmed with patients.”
The 78-page presentation does not contain information about whether any of the victims were struck by police bullets.
The siege ended when police stormed the club and shot Mateen. His wife, Noor Salman, is currently facing federal charges. State authorities are still investigating the actions of the officers that night.
Orlando Police Chief John Mina has presented the slides in front of about 10 police groups from around the world in an effort to detail his department’s response to the attack, according to the Orlando Sentinel newspaper, which first obtained the presentation.
One photo from after the incident showed double doors leading to what looks like main bar area propped open. A liquid runs out into a parking lot. Next to it, a window is blown out, which the presentation suggests was broken by officers preparing to make entry during the siege.
The attack on June 12 was the worst mass shooting in U.S. history.