ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) - The Latest on the fight over the release of the Pulse nightclub 911 calls (all times local):
5:55 p.m.
Police negotiators talking to the Orlando nightclub gunman at first weren’t sure if the person they had on the phone was actually in the Pulse nightclub.
Audio recording of shooter Omar Mateen’s conversations with police negotiators were released Monday after a judge ruled they should be made public.
The city of Orlando previously had released a transcript.
The audio recordings didn’t stray from the transcript but captured police negotiators strategizing among themselves about how best to talk to Mateen, who hung up several times.
A police official can be heard saying he’s not convinced the person on the call is in the club.
The lead negotiator says it sounds like Mateen is calling from “a very sterile environment” like a home or apartment.
But another police official says he could be in an office or bathroom.
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5 p.m.
Pulse nightclub gunman Omar Mateen’s voice rises in anger when he talks about the bombings in Iraq and Syria.
Audio recordings of Mateen speaking to police negotiators and dispatchers were released for the first time Monday. The city of Orlando previously had released a transcript of the calls.
Mateen enunciates emphatically to a police negotiator that he needs to tell the U.S. government to stop bombings in Syria and Iraq.
An Orlando judge ordered the audio recordings released Monday but won’t rule on releasing other 911 calls until she has listened to them.
Media groups want the calls released so the public can evaluate the police response to the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history.
The city of Orlando says the calls depict suffering and shouldn’t be made public.
Forty-nine patrons were killed, and another 53 people were seriously wounded during the June massacre.
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11:55 a.m.
A judge is ordering the city of Orlando to release audio recordings of the Pulse nightclub gunman talking to police dispatchers and negotiators. But she won’t rule on releasing other 911 calls until she has listened to them.
Circuit Judge Margaret Schreiber on Monday ordered that calls made by shooter Omar Mateen during the June massacre be made public immediately.
The city previously released a transcript of the calls.
But Schreiber says she can’t make a decision on whether 232 other calls can be released until she has heard them.
Media groups want the calls released so the public can evaluate the police response to the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history.
The city of Orlando says the calls depict suffering and shouldn’t be made public.
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11:20 a.m.
A hearing on releasing some 911 calls from the massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando became a forum for family members to express their frustration over the lack of information released about the investigation.
Many of the half dozen family members and their representatives who testified Monday in an Orlando courtroom say they want more information about the shootings that left 49 people dead at Pulse Nightclub on June 12.
The FBI has offered no indication of when the probe into the shooting that also left 53 people wounded will be done.
Media groups want the calls released so the public can evaluate the police response to the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history.
The city of Orlando says the 232 calls depict suffering and shouldn’t be made public.
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4 a.m.
An Orlando judge will consider whether more 911 calls made during the Pulse nightclub shooting should be made public.
Circuit Judge Margaret Schreiber will listen to arguments Monday from attorneys for the city of Orlando and attorneys for The Associated Press and over two dozen other news outlets.
She also has invited family members of the 49 victims who died to testify at the hearing.
The city and the news outlets have been fighting over the release of all the 911 calls about the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history.
City officials have released two-thirds of the calls. They have refused to release over 200 calls placed to and from the nightclub during the three-hour massacre on June 12.
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