The FBI is investigating whether the Orlando mass shooter, Omar Mateen, who killed 49 people on Sunday morning, scouted out other potential targets---including Walt Disney World.
A survivor of the Orlando nightclub mass shooting gave a harrowing account of the attack.
Angel Colon, speaking next to his friends and family at a local hospital, gave a press conference to reporters about the shooting. He claims to have come face-to-face with Omar Mateen, the shooter.
He said Mateen shot everyone on the floor again and again, making sure they were dead.
On early Sunday morning, Colon told Tampabay.com that he was “hugging everyone. It was a great night. No drama, just smiles, just laughter.”
But out of nowhere, they heard gunshots. “We stop what we’re doing, and it just keeps going.” He added:
We grabbed each other. We started running.
I was shot about three times in my leg. I had fallen down. I tried to get back up, but everyone started running everywhere.
I got trampled over. I shattered and broke my bones on my left leg. So by this time, I couldn’t walk at all. All I could do was lay down there while everyone was running on top of me, trying to get to where they had to be. All I could hear was the shotguns. One after another. People screaming. People yelling for help.
By this time, this man, he goes into the other room, and I can just hear more shotguns going on. I thought I was a little safe at this time, because it’s giving everyone time to tackle him down or get him down.
Mateen then shot everyone that was already dead on the ground, making sure they were dead, Colon said.
“I look over, and he shoots the girl next to me. And I’m just there laying down, I’m thinking, I’m next. I’m dead,” he said.
Somehow, Mateen shot at his head but it hit his hand. Mateen then shot him again in the hip.
“I had no reaction. I was prepared to just stay there, laying down so that he won’t know that I’m alive. He’s just doing this for another five, 10 minutes, just shooting all over the place,” he added.
He then recounted being dragged out by a police officer:
And I’m looking up and some cop, which I wish I can remember his face or his name, because to this day, I’m grateful for him. He looks at me. He makes sure I’m alive. And he grabs my hand. And he’s like, “This is the only way I can take you out.” I’m like, “Please carry me. I’m in pain right now.” I couldn’t walk or anything. So he starts to drag me out across the street to a Wendy’s, and I’m grateful for him, but the floor is just covered in glass.
So he’s dragging me out while I’m just getting cut. My behind. My back. My legs. I don’t feel pain, but I just feel all this blood on me — from myself, from other people. And he just drops me off across the street.
And I look over. There’s just bodies everywhere.
Police said that 49 people and the suspect were killed in the attack---described as the worst shooting in U.S. history.
Mateen had pledged allegiance to ISIS during the shooting.
President Barack Obama again addressed the terrorist attack, hitting out at Republican critics who claimed he was avoiding the term “radical Islam.”
“Calling a threat by a different name does not make it go away. … There’s no magic to the phrase of radical Islam,” Obama said Tuesday. “It’s a political talking point.”
