The US Justice Department and the FBI on Monday released what they said was the complete transcript of the phone conversation between the Orlando nightclub shooter and 911 police operators as he threatened to strap explosives to his hostages.
The release of the full transcript came a few hours after the FBI had issued an edited transcript of the calls.
In the full transcript, the gunman, Omar Mateen, is quoted pledging allegiance to Islamic State leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.
I Did the Shootings: Mateen
Mateen, 29, killed 49 people at a gay nightclub in Florida on 12 June, in the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history. He threatened to detonate a car rigged with bombs and to strap hostages into explosive vests, according to transcripts of the 911 calls he made.
An excerpt from the transcript read:
I let you know, I’m in Orlando and I did the shootings.
Mateen made the first call in “a chilling, calm and deliberate manner”, said Ronald Hopper, FBI assistant special agent in charge in Orlando during a news briefing on multi TV networks.
The FBI and Justice Department said they had released a redacted transcript of the conversations because of sensitivity to the interests of survivors and victims’ families, and the integrity of the investigation.
But the first transcript led US House of Representative Speaker Paul Ryan and other politicians to call for the release of a full transcript after a political battle over gun violence brewed in the US Congress.
Mateen’s conversations with a dispatcher and crisis negotiators were made public as police sought to fend off criticism that they may have acted too slowly to end a three-hour standoff at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando.
(With inputs from Reuters and IANS)
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