Orlando nightclub shooting

On June 12, 2016, Omar Mateen, a 29-year-old man, shot and killed 49 people and wounded 53 more in a mass shooting at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, United States. Orlando Police officers fatally shot him after a three-hour standoff. In a 9-1-1 call made shortly after the shooting began, Mateen swore allegiance to the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and said the U.S. killing of Abu Waheeb in Iraq the previous month "triggered" the shooting. He later told a negotiator he was "out here right now" because of the American-led interventions in Iraq and in Syria and that the negotiator should tell the United States to stop the bombing. The incident was deemed a terrorist attack by FBI investigators. Pulse was hosting a "Latin Night", and most of the victims were Latino. The shooting was the deadliest terrorist attack in the United States since the September 11 attacks and is second only to the 2017 Las Vegas shooting as the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history. It is also the deadliest incident of violence against LGBT people in the United States, surpassing the UpStairs Lounge arson attack in 1973, although it is disputed whether Mateen targeted Pulse specifically because it was a gay club. On June 11, 2016, Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, was hosting "Latin Night", a weekly Saturday night event drawing a primarily Latino crowd. RuPaul’s Drag Race contestant and drag queen Kenya Michaels is recorded to have been performing right as the shooting began (Michaels survived the shooting). About 320 people were still inside the club, which was serving last call drinks at around 2:00 a.m. () on June 12. At around the same time, Omar Mateen arrived at the club via rental van, parking it in the parking lot of a neighboring car shop. He got out and walked toward the building armed with a SIG Sauer MCX semi-automatic rifle and a 9mm Glock 17 semi-automatic pistol. He was wearing a green, blue, and white plaid dress shirt, a white T-shirt underneath, and tan cargo pants.