Orlando gunman made chilling call to news station and pledged allegiance to ISIS in the middle of massacre that left 49 dead
He said: 'I'm the shooter. It's me. I am the shooter.'
Omar Mateen, the shooter at the Orlando gay nightclub Pulse, phoned Orlando local news station News 13 to pledge allegiance to ISIS during the shooting.
He spoke to Matthew Gentili, a producer at News 13, 45 minutes after the shooting began.
"I will never forget the words he said to me," Gentili said.
Up until that point he had been answering calls from worried viewers wanting more information about the attack.
"It was at 2:45 a.m. when I had just received the phone call of someone claiming to be the Orlando shooter," he said. "I answered the phone as I always do: 'News 13, this is Matt.' And on the other end, I heard, 'Do you know about the shooting?' "
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When Gentili said he was aware of the shooting, the person on the other end said: "I'm the shooter. It's me. I am the shooter."
The caller then proceeded to say that he had carried out the shooting for ISIS.
"At the time, I didn't know what he was saying. He was speaking so fast,” said Gentili, “He was speaking fluently. Whatever language he was speaking, he knew it. And he was speaking it very quickly. And that is when I said to him, 'Sir. Please. Speak in English, please.'"
I'm the shooter. It's me. I am the shooter
The called then stopped and said: "I did it for ISIS. I did it for the Islamic State."
Gentili said he asked the caller where he was but he refused to answer.
"It was silent for a while. I asked him: 'Is there anything else you want to say?' " Gentili said. "He said no and hung up the phone."
Family man . . . Mateen with ex-wife Noor and their son
The FBI interviewed Gentili after he completed his shift, but they won’t confirm whether or not it was Omar Mateen that he was speaking to.
However, the managing editor of News 13 traced the call and matched the phone number to that of Mateen.
"I'm definitely changed," Gentili said. "When you get a phone call like that, I'm never going to be able to answer the phone again without thinking this is the most serious call I'll ever get in my life."
As well as phoning News 13, Mateen called a friend to say goodbye and called 911.
Forty-nine people were killed and more than fifty others wounded in the massacre, which is the deadliest mass shooting in modern American history.
Since Sunday it has come to light that Mateen’s ex-wife, Noor Salman, was aware of his plans for the attack.
that Ms Salman told FBI agents that she tried to talk Mateen out of carrying out the attack, but failed to notify police.
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