The Pulse nightclub shooting was the deadliest attack on LGBTQ people in American history, and liberals and conservatives - including then-presidential candidate Donald Trump - assumed the shooting was based on the victims’ sexual orientation and gender identity. Salman’s attorneys introduced evidence showing that, far from assisting the shooter, she was a victim of her husband’s abuse, including frequent beatings and sexual assault. Now taste the Islamic state vengeance.” In his final post, he wrote, “In the next few days you will see attacks from the Islamic state in the usa.” He had pledged allegiance to ISIS’s leader, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, and during the Pulse shooting posted to Facebook, “You kill innocent women and children by doing us airstrikes. The shooter’s motive was apparently revenge for United States bombing campaigns on ISIS targets in the Middle East. She was acquitted by a jury last Friday, a rare occurrence when most defendants accused of terror charges accept plea deals and the average conviction rate in such cases is above 90 percent.
![miami gay bar shooting miami gay bar shooting](https://d.ibtimes.co.uk/en/full/1524075/orlando-gay-club-shooting-mourners.jpg)
Federal prosecutors argued that Salman had helped her husband plan and orchestrate the attack.
#Miami gay bar shooting trial#
The evidence emerged during the trial of the shooter’s wife, Noor Salman, whom the federal government charged with aiding and abetting and obstruction of justice. Instead, the new evidence suggests, the Pulse nightclub shooting was intended as revenge for US anti-terror policies abroad. This evidence dramatically changes the mass shooting’s narrative politicians and individuals across the political spectrum had positioned it as an anti-LGBTQ hate crime. In fact, he allegedly had no idea Pulse was a gay club, and simply Googled “Orlando nightclubs” after finding that security at his original target, a major shopping and entertainment complex, was too high, as reported by. “There are another 53 that are hospitalized.It’s been nearly two years since the mass shooting at Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, that killed 49 people - widely believed to be an act of aggression against the club’s LGBTQ clientele and “undeniably a homophobic hate crime.” There’s now conclusive evidence that the shooter wasn’t intending to target LGBTQ people at all. “We have cleared the building, and it is with great sadness that I share we have not 20 but 50 casualties in addition to the shooter,” Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer said at a second news briefing. Authorities initially said they believed about 20 people had been killed in the shooting, but later raised that number to 50, making Sunday’s mass shooting the worst in U.S. “People on the dance floor and bar got down on the floor and some of us who were near the bar and back exit managed to go out through the outdoor area and just ran,” he commented on the club’s Facebook page.Īt a morning press conference, police called the shooting a “mass casualty event” and said it was difficult to know how many people had been killed because many of the bodies had not yet been removed from the club, The New York Times reports. Just screaming and coming out running like crazy.” Ricardo Almodovar, who said he was at Pulse, described the panic when the shooting began.
![miami gay bar shooting miami gay bar shooting](https://media-cldnry.s-nbcnews.com/image/upload/newscms/2016_23/1575446/160612-orlando-shootings-mn-1405.jpg)
“I had to run inside the store, and I saw just a lot of people screaming, crying. “It was something that I never heard before,” Jose Torres, who works across the street, told CNN.
![miami gay bar shooting miami gay bar shooting](https://media.newyorker.com/photos/590977851c7a8e33fb38f9bb/master/pass/Orlando-Shooting-Muhammad-Musri1.jpg)
Witnesses at the scene described chaos as SWAT teams arrived and people fled bleeding from the downtown Orlando club. Nine officers confronted the gunman, who was shot and killed. “That turned into a hostage situation,” the police chief said.Īt 5 A.M., with more officers at the scene and an armored vehicle at the ready, police decided to mount a rescue operation, breaking down the door and detonating two explosives to distract the shooter. The two exchanged gunfire outside the club, and the suspect ran inside. According to police, an officer responded to reports of a shooting around 2 A.M. Hundreds of people were reportedly in the club when the gunman arrived. Pulse, which calls itself “Orlando’s Latin Hotspot,” hosts an “Upscale Latin Saturdays” party on Saturdays, according to The New York Times.