Did a delay in response give the gunman more time? Cops face questions over why it took three hours for SWAT teams to storm Orlando nightclub as police chief admits officers may have shot some of the VICTIMS
- Police Chief John Mina and officers are facing scrutiny for the response
- Took three hours for tactical units to enter after Omar Mateen opened fire
- Delay has raised questions that the gunman was given more time to shoot
- Orlando cops have already admitted they've learned from the attack
- SWAT set off explosives outside Pulse nightclub to blow holes in the wall
- But the devices didn't penetrate the exterior, so they had to use a vehicle
Orlando
police are facing questions over why it took three hours for a SWAT
team to storm the nightclub where ISIS fanatic Omar Mateen slaughtered
49 people.
As the largest mass shooting
in modern U.S. history began to unfold, an off-duty police officer
working at a gay nightclub exchanged gunfire with the suspect.
But authorities chose to hold off on letting the tactical units enter Pulse nightclub, where more than 100 people were shot.
Police Chief John Mina has also admitted that some of the victims may have been hit by officers' gun fire.
Orlando Police Chief John Mina has
admitted that some of the victims inside Pulse nightclub could have been
shot by law enforcement as his department faces questions over why they
told SWAT teams to wait for three hours after gunman Omar Mateen had
opened fire
Two bodies of victims arrive at the
Orlando Medical Examiner's Office. They were among the 49 people killed
in the horrific attack in the early hours of Sunday morning
However he insisted it is a part of the investigation into the horrific attack.
He
said: 'I will say that is all part of the investigation. But I will say
when our SWAT officers, about eight or nine officers, opened fire,
their backdrop was a concrete wall. And they were being fired upon, so
that is all part of the investigation.'
The decisions made by Orlando police made them targets for scrutiny among experts in police tactics.
They
said the lessons learned from other mass shootings show that officers
must get inside swiftly — even at great risk — to stop the threat and
save lives.
'We
live in a different world. And action beats inaction 100 per cent of
the time,' said Chris Grollnek, an expert on active-shooter tactics and a
retired police officer and SWAT team member.
Authorities
in Orlando say the situation changed from an active-shooter scenario to
a hostage situation once gunman Mateen made it into one of the
bathrooms where club-goers were hiding.
He first had a shootout with the off-duty officer at the club's entrance.
Then two other officers arrived and the firing continued.
Experts say there's a big difference between responding to a lone gunman and a shooter who has hostages.
In
active-shooter situations, police are now trained to respond
immediately, even if only one or two officers are available to confront
the suspect.
In a hostage crisis, law enforcement generally tries to negotiate.
Once
in the restroom, Mateen called 911 and made statements pledging
allegiance to the Islamic State, Orlando Police Chief John Mina said
Monday.
That's when the shooting stopped and hostage negotiators began talking with him, the chief said.
'We
had a team of crisis negotiators that talked to the suspect, trying to
get as much information as possible, what we could do to help resolve
the situation... He wasn't asking a whole lot, and we were doing most of
the asking,' Mina said.
But
Mateen soon began talking about explosives and bombs, leading Mina to
decide about 5am to detonate an explosive on an exterior wall to prevent
potentially greater loss of life.
The
explosives did not penetrate the wall completely, so an armored vehicle
was used to punch a two-foot-by-three-foot hole in the wall about two
feet from the ground.
'We knew there would be an imminent loss of life,' Mina said.
Hostages started running out, as did Mateen, who was killed in a shootout with SWAT team members.
It turned out there were no explosives.
Police
tactics changed after the 1999 massacre at Columbine High School, where
the first officers to arrive exchanged fire with the gunmen but then
stopped and waited for the SWAT team. That took 45 minutes. By then,
Eric Harris and Dylan Klebold had killed 12 students and a teacher.
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