Orlando terror attack updates: Obama meets with victims’ families in Orlando

Ken J. Mascara, the sheriff of St. Lucie County in Florida, said Thursday that the man who carried out the massacre at an Orlando nightclub was removed from his job as a security guard at the county’s courthouse in 2013 after he made inflammatory comments about women, Jews and the mass shooting at Ft. Hood.

Here is Mascara’s statement:

“Omar Mateen was one of multiple contracted security guards that rotated through the St. Lucie County Courthouse as part of a contract with G4S Secure Solutions USA Inc.

“In early 2013, our staff was made aware of inflammatory comments made by Mateen. Our courthouse supervisor first requested that G4S management transfer him out of the courthouse rotation permanently. That was immediately granted. Our agency then made the appropriate notifications to inform our federal partners. It was at this time that the FBI began an investigation into Mateen that was later deemed inconclusive.”

— Molly Hennessy-Fiske

Orlando’s response to the Pulse shooting massacre is a reminder “of what is good” about America, President Obama said in an emotional tribute to the victims Thursday.

After hours-long meetings with their families and survivors of the deadly attack, Obama and Vice President Joe Biden traveled to a makeshift memorial to leave bouquets of 49 white roses -- one for each life lost -- among the other flowers, balloons and photos that have collected there.

In brief remarks to reporters after, Obama said those lost “showed us what is best about humanity.”

“It will carry us through this atrocity and other challenges,” he said as a light rain began to fall. “Out of this darkest of moments, that gives us hope.”

Though the city was “shaken by an evil, hateful act,” the president added, “most of all, there is love.”

— Christi Parsons

President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden place flowers for the shooting victims at a memorial at the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts in Orlando, Fla., on June 16, 2016.

(SAUL LOEBSAUL/AFP/Getty Images)

In Orlando, Fla., President Obama referred to Donald Trump’s recent claim that more lives could have been saved at Pulse if more patrons were armed themselves. Such a notion “defies common sense,” he said, without naming Trump.

Obama said he was pleased the Senate would hold votes on gun safety measures, one day after Democrats waged a filibuster to force the issue.

Earlier, Obama met with the owners and staff of the Pulse nightclub, a place, he said, to “be who you truly are.” The attack, an “act of hate,” was an opportunity for Americans to reflect on how we treat one another, Obama said.

“Hatred toward people because of sexual orientation, regardless of where it comes from, is a a betrayal of what’s best in us,” he said.

— Christi Parsons

Obama said the nation would continue to be relentless in its fight against terrorist networks like Al Qaeda and Islamic State. But he noted that attacks in Orlando, Fla., and San Bernardino were perpetrated not by sophisticated cells but so-called lone wolves, requiring a different approach.

“We can’t anticipate or catch every single deranged person who may wish to do harm,” he said. “But we can do something about the damage they do.”

As he embraced the victims’ families, Obama said they pleaded for him to do more.

“They don’t care about the politics, and neither do I,” he said.

— Christi Parsons

Sen. John McCain speaks on Capitol Hill in April.

(Evan Vucci / Associated Press)

Republican Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) said Thursday that President Obama is “directly responsible” for the mass shooting in Orlando, Fla,, because Obama has allowed the growth of Islamic State group on his watch.

McCain — who lost to Obama in the 2008 presidential election — made the comment to reporters while Obama was in Orlando visiting with the families of those killed in Sunday’s attack and some of the survivors.

“Barack Obama is directly responsible for it, because when he pulled everybody out of Iraq, Al Qaeda went to Syria, became ISIS, and ISIS is what it is today thanks to Barack Obama’s failures, utter failures, by pulling everybody out of Iraq,” a visibly angry McCain told reporters in the Capitol as the Senate debated a spending bill.

“So the responsibility for it lies with President Barack Obama and his failed policies,” McCain said.

However, McCain later sought to clarify his comments, saying over Twitter: “To clarify, I was referring to Pres Obama’s national security decisions that have led to rise of #ISIL, not to the President himself.”

— Associated Press

This post was updated to reflect McCain’s clarification of his earlier remarks. The original post was published at 12:06 p.m.

The body of one of the Orlando massacre victims arrives at the Orange County, Fla., medical examiner’s office on June 12, 2016.

(Alan Diaz / Associated Press)

The medical examiner who oversaw the autopsies of the 49 victims in the Pulse nightclub shooting says he kept their bodies separated from the gunman’s body.

Dr. Joshua Stephany said in a statement Thursday that the remains of gunman Omar Mateen were being held in a building separate from the victims.

He also says the gunman’s autopsy was conducted in a separate building from the victims’.

Stephany says he decided to do that not because of any requirement but because he thought it was the right thing to do.

The medical examiner says his staff was able to identify and conduct autopsies on the all victims within 72 hours after Sunday morning’s shooting.

— Associated Press

— Marisa Gerber

Nearly half of those killed in the Pulse nightclub massacre had ties to Puerto Rico.

CIA Director John Brennan warned Thursday that as Islamic State loses ground in Syria and Iraq, it probably will use “guerrilla tactics” to launch more terrorist attacks like those in Orlando, Fla., Brussels and Paris.

The CIA has seen “no sign” that Omar Mateen, who killed 49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, was in contact with Islamic State or any other terrorist group, Brennan told the Senate Intelligence Committee.

Like the married couple who killed 14 people on Dec. 2 in San Bernardino, Mateen appears to have been self-radicalized online, in part by listening to jihadist sermons and watching videos of beheadings by militants.

— Brian BennettRead More

Crime scene investigators search Syed Rizwan Farook and Tashfeen Malik’s SUV after a gun battle with the couple in San Bernardino on Dec. 4, 2015.

(Allen J. Schaben / Los Angeles Times)

Islamic State supporters “have accounted for 67 homegrown violent jihadist plots” in the United States between 2014 and early June 2016, according to an analysis by the Congressional Research Service, although only a handful were carried out.

The plots, in which Americans either joined terrorist organizations abroad or committed violent attacks at home or overseas, involved more than 100 individuals, the 18-page report said.

A total of 13 homegrown attacks were carried out in the United States since 2001, the CRS found, five of which involved people inspired by the Islamic State. The analysis said these attackers, which include the Orlando shooter and the couple who gunned down 14 people in San Bernardino, often acted alone and did not have “sustained, substantive, in-person contact with foreign terrorist organizations,” rather they “scraped together ideological justification” from online and social media sources.

“In essence, these attacks involved do-it-yourself — DIY — terrorists,” the study said. “Largely isolated from the operational support of terrorist organizations, they acquired violent skills (however rudimentary) by themselves or relied on abilities that they had developed prior to becoming violent jihadists.”

— W.J. Hennigan

Sisters Sarah Bryant, left, and Katy Bryant, both from Irvine, listen as the names of the Orlando shooting victims are read during a vigil at the Velvet Lounge, a gay bar and club in Santa Ana.

(Katie Falkenberg / Los Angeles Times)

The comfort of words flowed, as smooth as their spirits.

A vigil for the victims of the Orlando mass shooting, the largest in U.S. history, took place in a gay nightclub in Santa Ana — the seat of famously conservative Orange County.

“This is the church of the LGBTQ community, our safe space,” Sian Wiltshire of Orange Coast Unitarian Universalist Church said Wednesday night, standing under rainbow-colored spotlights at the Velvet Lounge.

About 100 people, many of them holding flickering candles, intoned the names of the dead.

Read More— Anh Do

President Obama has arrived in Orlando, Fla., to meet with the family members of victims of the Pulse nightclub massacre.

But unlike some of the president’s previous trips for memorial services after mass shootings, this one will be decidedly low-key: no address to a large crowd, but simply “a few personal reflections” to the press after spending time with mourners.

The White House has worked closely with Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer to coordinate the visit, spokesman Eric Schultz told reporters traveling with the president, and did not want to overburden local law enforcement officials strained by the attacks.

The quick visit, though, was a way for both Obama and Vice President Joe Biden to show that “Americans stand shoulder to shoulder” with the people of central Florida. “There’s no more tangible way to show support than by traveling to the city where this horrific incident occurred,” Schultz said.

The shooting has quickly become fodder for the presidential campaign, but Obama’s visit has a bipartisan note. Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida joined Obama aboard Air Force One to travel to Orlando. And among those greeting Obama upon arrival was Republican Gov. Rick Scott.

— Michael A. Memoli

Alex Honorato just arrived at the Amway Center. His son, Miguel, was killed in the shooting. He was 30 and a father of three.

The elder Honorato arrived with several women who appeared to be family members. They walked in silently.

You can read more about Miguel Honorato here.

— Molly Hennessy-Fiske

A young Latino man arrived wearing a rainbow ribbon and bracelet. He clutched a framed photo to his chest. Asked if he had anything to say, he looked down and shook his head. An escort lead him through a brief rain and into the building where those invited waited just inside the door, guarded by police.

— Molly Hennessy-Fiske

Condolences for the victims of the Pulse shooting are displayed on an electronic message board outside the Amway Center on Monday.

(Phelan M. Ebenhack/Associated Press)

Obama is about to arrive at the Amway Center, a venue in downtown Orlando.

A Florida Hospital ambulance is parked outside, and Ariel Santiago, 32, one of the people wounded attack, was wheeled inside on a gurney.

Nurses in blue scrubs are arriving, and some of them hug each other as they’re waiting to enter. Some people walk in, arm in arm, teary, with escorts from a nearby parking lot.

— Molly Hennessy-Fiske

Twenty-three Pulse shooting victims were still hospitalized at the Orlando Regional Medical Center as of Thursday morning. Six of them were in critical condition, three were in “guarded” condition and 14 were stable. Florida Hospital also has five patients in fair condition.

Three more surgeries on victims were scheduled for Thursday. Since Sunday, surgeons have performed 50 operations on the victims of the shooting.

— Molly Hennessy-Fiske

Shortly before he was shot and killed by police at about 5 a.m. Sunday, Omar Mateen searched on social media for news of his homicidal rampage at the Pulse nightclub, according to the chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee.

Apparently using a phone, Mateen searched Facebook for “Pulse Orlando” and “Shooting,” committee staff found, after uncovering five Facebook accounts they believe Mateen had used.

Mateen also posted his ostensible political agenda on Facebook from the gay nightclub where he killed 49 people and wounded 53 others.

“America and Russia stop bombing the Islamic state..I pledge my alliance to [Islamic State leader] abu bakr al Baghdadi..may Allah accept me,” he wrote.

He also wrote: “The real muslims will never accept the filthy ways of the west” and “You kill innocent women and children by doing us airstrikes..now taste the Islamic state vengeance.”

The final post on Facebook reads, “In the next few days you will see attacks from the Islamic state in the usa.”

Read More— Brian Bennett

President Obama is a reluctant veteran of memorial services for victims of mass killings, yet no single one of those he’s presided over prepares him fully to mark the Orlando massacre he will mark Thursday.

The deadliest mass shooting in the country’s history, the attack stands distinct in the president’s experience not only for its scope and scale, but also for the complex web of issues it brought to the forefront — fear of terrorism and radicalism, worries about political fallout and the vulnerability of targeted communities.

Aides anticipated that Obama’s address on Thursday will be brief and focus on principles upheld by the victims and the responders.

They exemplified pluralism and unity, said one aide, ideals the president wants to promote as more powerful than the extremism espoused by their killer. And he will set aside the partisan rancor that he addressed in a searing critique Tuesday of presumptive Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump’s anti-terrorism agenda, including a proposed ban on Muslims from entering the U.S.

Read More— Christi Parsons

Omar Mateen, the gunman in the Orlando, Fla., mass shooting.

(AFP / Getty Images)

FBI agents reviewing Omar Mateen’s electronic communications and call records have had difficulty accessing data stored on the cellphone he used during the Sunday massacre because it was damaged by water and blood, a law enforcement official said Wednesday.

But FBI analysts are putting the device through a drying process and are confident they ultimately can recover phone numbers, texts, photos and other data, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss progress in the investigation.

A second law enforcement official said FBI analysts had determined that Mateen downloaded jihadist propaganda to his laptop computer, including videos of beheadings by militants.

Despite scrutiny of the hard drive, the FBI has found no documents written by Mateen that shed light on why he chose the Pulse nightclub for his attack, or why he chose Sunday.

Read More— Del Quentin Wilber

Universal Orlando staff and guests gathered outside Hogwarts Castle on Monday to pay tribute to one of their own in a vigil straight out of “Harry Potter.”

Luis Vielma was one of the 49 people killed when a gunman opened fire in a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., on Sunday. The 22-year-old was an attraction operator at the theme park whose responsibilities included running the Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey ride and was described by a co-worker as “a funny, sweet, nerdy guy without a mean side.”

During the tribute, Vielma was remembered as “one of the bravest and best Gryffindors the world has ever known” and that “he was kind and he was brave and he was one of the kindest souls you will ever meet in your life.”

Read More— Tracy Brown

Omar Mateen appeared in a 2012 documentary about the 2010 BP oil spill called “The Big Fix” while he was working as a security guard during the cleanup.

“Everybody’s just, get out to get paid,” he said in the documentary, according to CBS News. “They’re like hoping for more oil to come out and more people to complain so they’ll have jobs. They want more disaster to happen.”

Mateen worked for the security company G4S when the documentary was filmed and was still employed there at the time of the massacre. Here’s the trailer for “The Big Fix:”

San Diego police are investigating an ominous post reported on Craigslist that referred to the massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., and warned that “San Diego you are next.”

KGTV-TV reported Tuesday night that a viewer had brought the item, posted in the “men seeking men” section of the free ad website, to the station’s attention.

The post, which has since been removed, featured a photo a handgun firing a bullet with the title “We need more Orlando’s [sic]”.

— Debbi BakerRead More

Travelers, sports fans and concertgoers may see more police and tighter security screening at airports and events this summer in the wake of Sunday night’s mass shooting in Orlando, Fla., according to a Department of Homeland Security bulletin issued Wednesday.

While no intelligence indicates a “specific and credible” threat of an impending terrorist plot, the bulletin cites the shooting at an Orlando nightclub, as well as recent attacks at a county building in San Bernardino, at an airport and subway in Brussels, and at restaurants and a concert all in Paris as examples of terrorists targeting of crowded public spaces.

“In this environment, we are particularly concerned about homegrown violent extremists who could strike with little or no notice. The tragic events of Orlando several days ago reinforce this,” the bulletin states.

The wording of the one-page advisory, called a National Terrorism Advisory System Bulletin, is similar to a notice issued in December under a revamped terrorism alert system that replaced the widely mocked color-coded threat alerts. Last year’s notice was set to expire on Thursday.

The new bulletin urged Americans to continue to travel and attend public events but to be vigilant and report suspicious activity to police.

“Make a mental note of emergency exits and locations of the nearest security personnel,” it says. It also recommends that Americans carry a list of emergency contacts and keep cellphones in their pockets instead of in bags, so they aren’t lost during a violent incident.

— Brian Bennett

Sen. Christopher S. Murphy, a Democrat from Connecticut who made gun control one of his priorities following the massacre of children at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn., in 2012, has taken control of the Senate floor.

He wants the Senate to vote on a measure banning anyone on the no-fly list from purchasing weapons, and says he won’t yield his time until the vote happens. Murphy’s Democratic colleagues, including Sen. Bill Nelson of Florida, have been joining him on the floor in support of the effort.

Nelson has been talking about the Orlando shooting rampage and pointedly noted that the assault weapon used Sunday morning to kill 49 people would have been banned had Congress not allowed the Assault Weapons Ban to expire in 2004.

As we have been reporting, Democrats in Congress have been pushing the issue in the U.S. House as well. The debate has led to high emotions and some lawmakers have been visibly angry as they attempt to force a vote.

C-Span has a livestream you can watch above, and some excerpts of Murphy’s remarks are below.

— Christina Bellantoni

The investigation into the massacre at Pulse, a gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla., is now turning toward one of the people who was closest to the gunman: Omar Mateen’s wife, Noor Zahi Salman. Federal authorities are using a grand jury in Florida that would be a vehicle to file federal charges against Salman if she knew the attack was going to occur but failed to alert authorities.

Salman has told FBI investigators that she warned her husband not to commit the shooting and that she accompanied him when he purchased ammunition, the official said. She also told the FBI that she had driven with him to the Pulse nightclub at least once before.

Mateen’s father described Salman as a “very sweet lady” who attended family affairs and took care of his grandson. He had no knowledge of whether she had known about Omar’s plans, he said, referring all questions to the FBI.

She could face federal charges ranging from prison — the intentional concealing of knowledge of a felony — or aiding and abetting a crime, or even conspiracy to commit an act of terrorism, depending on her level of culpability. A federal law enforcement official said prosecutors were in no rush to charge her with a crime — if they deem one has been committed — because she does not pose a threat.

Sarah Schall, a spokeswoman for the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Florida, said Wednesday that her office and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Middle District of Florida would not comment on any grand jury investigations. She declined to confirm or deny the existence of any grand jury proceedings related to the Orlando mass shooting and would not say which district would handle it.

Read More

Omar Mateen’s wife, Noor Zahi Salman, grew up in a hilly neighborhood of tract homes in Rodeo, Calif., a small suburb of just 9,000 people in Contra Costa County just east of an oil refinery next to San Pablo Bay.

Neighbors said Salman celebrated her wedding to Mateen a few years ago in the neighborhood and then moved away to Florida. After her marriage, she rarely visited.

Salman’s mother has been saddened and depressed since she heard of what happened.

— Ron Lin

Full statement from Chris W. Cox, executive director of the National Rifle Association’s Institute for Legislative Action:

Rufina Paniagua, 54, mother of one of the people killed at Pulse, said she was doing the paperwork to travel to Florida from Mexico and see her son’s remains. Her son was Joel Rayon Paniagua, 36.

“My son was a good kid,” she said. “He always worried about me, sent me money. His father abandoned us, and Joel was always taking care of me money-wise. ... I don’t understand how someone could do this.”

Paniagua said her son lived and worked in Florida for about nine years, then returned to their home in Mexico’s Veracruz state several years ago. There he worked at a fruit stand in the market, but made so little money that he wanted to return to the U.S., his mother said.

“I told him to stay, to work here, but he had his dreams, his goals,” she said. Joel returned to Florida in August.

Paniagua spoke to her son on Friday. He was worried about her, she said, because he had heard terrible news about “people killing each other in Mexico.”

Paniagua said her son worked as a gardener, and was saving money to help her get a passport and travel to the U.S. Thanks to him and his earnings, she said, she has been able to buy a house and a car.

“The [state] government contacted me [about the killing], and I prayed to God that it was not him,” she said. “I just want to have him here, to bury his body here, although I still have a hope that it may not be him.”

— Tracy Wilkinson

Orlando Torres

(Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times)

Orlando Torres, 52, one of the promoters at Pulse, was trapped in a neighboring stall of the same bathroom with a drag queen friend. Torres said he drew upon his experience as a former auxiliary police officer in Queens, N.Y., and security guard at Orlando Regional Medical Center, where he and other victims would later be treated.

“Three hours in that bathroom with that gunman; I’m surprised that we don’t have a bullet wound on us. We were protected. We were saved. It was just a miracle,” he said in an interview.

Torres said the gunman called police to say, “America needs to stop bombing ISIS in Syria.”

Torres added: “He just wanted to repeat, only to get the message across. They were trying to ask him other questions and he wasn’t liking it. He wasn’t ready to give answers and so he hung up on them.”

Later, he heard the gunman brag, “Yeah, I have a lot of bullets.”

Read More— Molly Hennessy-Fiske

Two dozen news agencies, including the Los Angeles Times, have joined forces to demand the release of recordings of 911 callers frantically reporting a gunman on a deadly rampage early Sunday at a gay nightclub just south of downtown Orlando.

Shooter Omar Mateen’s “cool and calm” exchange with a 911 dispatcher while he was carrying out the assault that left 49 dead and 53 injured is among the requested recordings. Mateen, 29, died in an exchange of gunfire with police.

Citing an “ongoing investigation,” Orlando police have refused to release the tapes.

“Even in critical and challenging times, transparency is important,” said a four-page letter sent Tuesday to Orlando’s city attorney from media lawyer Rachel Fugate of Thomas & LoCicero in Tampa. “It helps the citizens … have a better understanding of what transpired and try to come to grips with the horrific and unimaginable tragedy.”

The Pulse nightclub attack, carried out over three horrific hours early Sunday, is the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

“We’d prefer to release those tapes, but we have to follow the law and the law is clear,” Orlando City Atty. Mayanne Downs said by telephone Tuesday afternoon.

Other publications joining in the demand for release of the material include the Sun Sentinel, Orlando Sentinel, Miami Herald, Palm Beach Post, Chicago Tribune, New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, CNN, the Associated Press and others. Included in the request were dispatch and scanner recordings.

— Tonya Alanez, Orlando Sentinel

Omar Mateen increasingly sought out Islamic State videos and other radical Islamist propaganda in the months leading up to his deadly rampage at a gay nightclub Sunday, investigators have found.

A counter-terrorism official said investigators uncovered the material while reviewing Mateen’s searches on the Internet. Their inquiry so far has revealed that Mateen’s wife, Noor Salman, drove him to Pulse nightclub at least once in the days before the attack, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Investigators are looking closely at how much Salman knew in advance of the attacks, and whether she could have warned law enforcement. They also are scrutinizing Mateen’s visit to a Disney World property early this month, apparently during the Gay Days Orlando festivities, and other potential targets.

“It is fair to say there was a considerable amount of planning involved and scouting of potential locations,” Rep. Adam B. Schiff of Burbank, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, said in a telephone interview Tuesday after a closed-door briefing for House members by FBI Director James B. Comey and other officials. Schiff would not give further details.

At this point, the FBI doesn’t think Mateen had any accomplices in carrying out the massacre, but it’s possible others knew about his plan, Schiff said.

“The investigation is continuing into whether anyone provided logistical support or material support or had knowledge of the attack,” Schiff said.

— Brian BennettRead More

As has become routine in moments of national tragedy, the late-night conversation on Sunday and Monday was dominated by the mass shooting in Orlando, Fla.

The attack left 50 people dead, including the perpetrator, and stands as the worst mass shooting in modern American history. Late-night comedians including Samantha Bee, Stephen Colbert and Jimmy Fallon reacted to this grim milestone with grief, outrage, pleas for tolerance and, in some cases, calls to action.

Read More— Meredith Blake

The Orange County Medical Examiner’s Office said 20 bodies of the 49 deceased from the shootings at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla., have been released to a funeral home.

All 49 victims of the shooting have been identified. Their families have been notified as well.

Ann Marie Varga, communications division manager for Orange County, said the county does not have the power to release the shooter’s body.

“The FBI would be the only one to release Mateen’s body,” she said.

Varga said she did not know when the FBI would release it.

— Alexia Fernandez

With emotions still raw over the massacre in Orlando, Fla., tempers flared Tuesday as divided state lawmakers advanced a dozen gun-control bills, including proposals to outlaw the sale in California of semiautomatic rifles with easily detachable magazines.

The bills originally were introduced in response to a mass shooting in San Bernardino in December, but the killing of 49 people in an Orlando nightclub Sunday was invoked over and over Tuesday by Democrats as state legislative committees heard testimony before voting to send bills to the floor for votes.

At one hearing, Assemblyman Evan Low (D-Campbell) angrily confronted National Rifle Assn. lobbyist Dan Reid, accusing his organization of being responsible for the Orlando shooting because of its lobbying against gun control.

“Less than 72 hours ago, 49 people were slain in a nightclub in Orlando,” Low said during the hearing. “It’s very difficult for me to sit here and look you in the eye and have respect for you, Dan.”

Read More— Patrick McGreevy

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Angel Santiago and Patience Carter, who were both trapped in a restroom during the Orlando nightclub shooting, recount their ordeal. “He wasn’t going to stop killing people until he was killed,” Carter said.

As Patience Carter and two friends cowered inside the handicapped bathroom stall, injured and pinned by a crush of bleeding bodies, the gunman who opened fire in the Pulse nightclub kept talking.

“He said, ‘Are there any black people in here?’ I was too afraid to answer,” said Carter, who is African American.

Carter continued: “There was an African American man in the stall with us ... he said, ‘Yes, there are about six or seven of us.’ The gunman responded back to him saying that, ‘you know, I don’t have a problem with black people; this is about my country. You guys suffered enough.’”

Read More— Molly Hennessy-Fiske

Vice President Joe Biden says the attack on a gay nightclub in Florida is becoming “clearer and more straightforward.”

Biden said he had been briefed at a national security meeting shortly before making the comments at an unrelated event in New York City.

He said federal officials were “getting to the bottom of the tragedy.” He says it is “becoming clearer and more straightforward than a lot of us even thought.”

He did not elaborate on that comment, but said President Obama would say more in the coming days.

Biden also praised the work of the New York Police Department. He says the agency surpasses every other city in the nation in terms of cooperation and intelligence sharing.

— Associated Press

LGBT rights group GLAAD issued the following statement Tuesday:

The Times’ sister paper in Florida, The Sun Sentinel, reports:

Accompanied by a police escort on Tuesday, Omar Mateen’s wife, Noor Zahi Salman, returned to the apartment she shared with him, and officers were investigating a reported burglary at the home early Monday morning.

Fort Pierce police spokesman Ed Cunningham confirmed the police escort to Mateen’s address in the 2500 block of South 17th Street, but did not say who was escorted.

In an interview at his Port St. Lucie home, the shooter’s father, Seddique Mir Mateen, confirmed Salman was escorted by police to the apartment.

Miami news station WSVN-Channel 7 captured video of the woman being escorted at the apartment. In the video, the woman is seen hiding her face with a hoodie.

Cunningham also said the department is looking into a reported burglary at the house Monday.

He said the FBI left the home secured at 5 a.m. Monday. At 10 a.m., the department got a call from reporters that the back door of the apartment was open.

—Paula McMahon and Kate Jacobson

Read More

Mateen’s wife, Noor Zahi Salman, has told FBI agents that she drove with him to the Pulse nightclub on at least one occasion before Sunday’s mass shooting and that she also accompanied him to shop at a firearms dealer.

Mateen purchased a Glock handgun and an AR-15-type semiautomatic rifle during two separate visits this month to the St. Lucie Shooting Center, several miles from PGA Village, a gated community where he worked in Port St. Lucie, Fla., as a security guard.

The FBI is investigating whether Salman had knowledge of her husband’s plan to attack and kill patrons at the gay nightclub in Orlando, Fla.

If Salman knew of her husband’s intent to commit terrorism and didn’t report it to law enforcement, she could face criminal charges.

But a federal law enforcement official said the Justice Department is in no rush to file charges because no evidence has emerged to suggest the gunman had accomplices, and there is no imminent threat of another attack.

— Del Quentin Wilber

Omar Mateen had visited a number of Disney properties since April and most recently was spotted early this month in Disney Springs, an outdoor shopping and entertainment complex in Walt Disney World, according to a U.S. law enforcement official briefed on the investigation into the Orlando shooting.

Another U.S. official said that information provided to the FBI by Disney made it clear that Mateen was not simply a tourist visiting Walt Disney World two or three months ago.

U.S. officials say Mateen may have been casing the sites for a potential attack but reaching a firm conclusion on that theory would be difficult.

It’s possible that Mateen’s visit overlapped with Gay Days Orlando, which went from May 31 to June 6. The annual event brings thousands of LGBT individuals and families to Central Florida.

The organizers of Gay Days arrange some ticket packages at Disney parks during the weeklong event and designate parks to attend on certain days.

—Del Quentin Wilber, Brian Bennett

Thousands gathered for a memorial rally in downtown Orlando, Fla., on Monday to honor those killed and wounded in the Pulse nightclub attack.

(Carolyn Cole/Los Angeles Times)

(Carolyn Cole / Los Angeles Times)

Madeline Lago, 15, and her mother, Carmen Lago (center), were among the thousands who gathered for a memorial rally at the Plaza at the Dr. Phillips Performing Arts Center in downtown Orlando, Fla., on Monday to honor those killed and wounded in the Pulse nightclub attack. They bowed their heads as a bell tolled.

— Carolyn Cole

The FBI is investigating reports that Orlando gunman Omar Mateen had been a regular at the gay nightclub he attacked and had used gay dating apps, a U.S. official briefed on the case said Tuesday.

A number of possible explanations and motives for the bloodbath that left 49 victims dead have emerged, with Mateen professing allegiance to the Islamic State group, his ex-wife saying he was mentally ill, and his father suggesting he was driven by a hatred of gays.

The picture grew more complex as patrons of the Pulse came forward to say that they had seen the 29-year-old American-born Muslim there a number of times or that he had been using gay dating apps. Mateen had an ex-wife and 3-year-old son.

Jim Van Horn, 71, said Mateen was a regular at the club. “He was trying to pick up people. Men,” Van Horn told the Associated Press. While acknowledging he didn’t know Mateen well, Van Horn said: “I think it’s possible that he was trying to deal with his inner demons, of trying to get rid of his anger of homosexuality.”

The official who said the FBI is looking into those reports was not authorized to discuss the investigation publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

— Associated Press

Omar Mateen’s current wife, Noor Zahi Salman, is being interviewed by the FBI, said a law enforcement official who is not authorized to discuss the investigation and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Among other things, investigators are looking at whether Salman helped Mateen plan or scout the location of his shooting rampage at the Pulse nightclub, or knew about his plans in advance.

If Salman had knowledge of the plot and failed to alert law enforcement, she could face criminal charges for aiding and abetting the attacks, the official said.

— Brian Bennett

Omar Mateen is shown in an undated photograph.

(AFP/Getty Images)

Omar Mateen was once placed on the Selectee List of the FBI’s Terrorist Screening Database, which the bureau describes on its website as “a single database of identifying information about those known or reasonably suspected of being involved in terrorist activity.”

He was placed on the list while being investigated for 10 months starting in May 2013 for potential ties to terrorism. His co-workers reported to the FBI that he had scared them with talk of having family connections to Al Qaeda and being a member of another terror group. The FBI later concluded — after interviewing Mateen — that he was mostly full of bluster and had no such ties. Even so, during the investigation, he was added to the terror watch list and FBI agents would have received an alert if he had tried to buy firearms during that period. Being on the list would not have prevented those purchases, and he was removed shortly after the FBI closed its investigation in 2014.

About 42,000 people are in the overall Terrorist Screening Database, also known as the Terrorist Watchlist. About 98% of them are foreigners. About 16,000 of those in the database are on the Selectee List, a subset of potential terrorists deemed to be serious threats. Those on the Selectee List generally get a closer look from law enforcement during investigations and are subjected to additional screenings from airport security officials before getting on planes.

The Terrorist Watchlist also contains the more well-known and selective “No Fly List,” a database of about 16,000 people deemed so dangerous that they are barred from boarding commercial airliners. About 500 on the “No Fly List” are U.S. citizens or lawful permanent residents.

— Del Quentin Wilber

A YouTube video in which a Sacramento Baptist church pastor praised the massacre of 49 people at a gay nightclub in Florida and called the victims pedophiles and predators was removed Tuesday for violating the website’s policy on hate speech.

The videotaped sermon by Pastor Roger Jimenez of Verity Baptist Church touched off a firestorm shortly after it was posted on Sunday. In it, Jimenez said that when he learned the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history had occurred at a gay club, he wasn’t sad. In fact, he felt quite the contrary.

“I think Orlando, Fla., is a little safer tonight,” he told his congregation, equating members of the LGBT community to sexual predators. “The tragedy is more of them didn’t die…. I’m kind of upset he didn’t finish the job!”

Read More— Joseph Serna

President Obama accused Donald Trump of undermining American values through his proposals to ban Muslim immigrants from the country and said that such ideas were “doing the terrorists’ work for them,” as he issued his most direct attack to date on the presumptive Republican nominee.

“Are we going to start treating all Muslim Americans differently” than other citizens?” Obama asked. “Are we going to start discriminating against them because of their faith?”

If the U.S. goes down down that path “we would have betrayed the very things we’re trying to protect,” the president said.

Read More

President Obama called for lawmakers to reinstate the national assault weapons ban in a speech Tuesday about the shooting in Orlando, Fla. The attack was carried out with an AR-15-style semiautomatic rifle, by a gunman who pledged allegiance to Islamic State in a 911 call.

The owner of the Orlando nightclub where dozens of people were massacred says her club will be rebuilt as a tribute and will honor those who were killed, wounded or left grieving.

Barbara Poma told the Today show’s Matt Lauer that she “will not let hate win” in the aftermath of the shootings.

Poma said she named the club Pulse in honor of her brother, who died from AIDS in 1991. The name was a way of keeping his heartbeat alive. She wanted Pulse to be “a safe place” for the gay community.

— Associated Press

The Orlando shooting was a direct attack on the LGBT community in a place they called their own, the American Civil Liberties Union said Tuesday, calling for state legislatures to shift focus from proposals the group sees as targeting the community.

“The massacre there was an attack on freedom in America,” said James Esseks, the director of the ACLU’s LGBT rights project. “It was also an attack specifically on LGBT people, and it happened in a context that has been a safe haven for LGBT people.”

In the year since the Supreme Court ruled that same-sex marriage is legal nationwide, Esseks said, opponents have begun trying to use religious exemptions to pass laws “that would allow people to discriminate against LGBT people.”

He cited North Carolina’s law requiring people to use the government-owned restrooms and facilities that correspond with the gender on their birth certificate, and a law in Mississippi allows businesses and faith-based groups to deny jobs, housing and adoption services to individuals on the basis of sexual orientation.

On a state level, state policy council Eunice Rho said she hopes the Orlando attack “might change certain state legislatures’ priorities from shifting away from further stigmatizing LGBT people within their state and actually affirming that LGBT equality is an American value.”

—Jill Ornitz

Dr. Michael Cheatham of Orlando Regional Medical Center says hospital and trauma centers prepare for disasters, but “you can never prepare adequately.”

Doctors at a Tuesday news conference praised the work of staff at the hospital, where six people remain “critically ill.”

Cheatham said the facility escalated from two operating rooms to six within 30 to 60 minutes to care for the flood of patients.

He added, “I would be surprised” if the death toll from the nightclub shooting holds at 49.

— Associated Press

Just days after the nation’s worst mass shooting, the Journal of the American Medical Assn. published the findings of a study showing that between 2000 and 2013, injuries sustained by victims of firearms grew more severe and more deadly,

The study focused on close to 30,000 trauma patients who were treated at a single hospital system in Denver. Tracking the types and severity of traumatic injuries in patients brought to the hospital over 14 years, the new research found that the death rate for hospitalized gunshot victims climbed an average of 6% every two years.

The rising fatality rates occurred against the backdrop of gunshot wounds that were also escalating in severity. Over the study period, ambulances brought in an increasing number of firearms victims with two or more bullet wounds and injuries over more regions of their bodies.

Injuries grew progressively more severe among victims of stabbing and pedestrian accidents as well. But unlike those hurt in firearms incidents, patients who were stabbed or run over were not progressively more likely to die of their injuries during the study.

Read More

They came to pay their respects, to mourn, to comfort one another.

A crowd of more than 2,000 people gathered Monday evening at the steps of Los Angeles City Hall to honor the victims of the mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Fla., over the weekend.

Singer Lady Gaga, whose surprise appearance drew gasps from the crowd, called the shootings “an attack on humanity itself” and urged everyone to remember “these innocent, beautiful people.”

Rabbi Denise L. Eger of Congregation Kol Ami in West Hollywood told the crowd. “We must mourn those amazing, precious souls in Orlando.”

— Emily Alpert Reyes, Jason Song and Ben PostonRead More

A man who survived the nightclub shooting in Orlando says he thought “I’m next, I’m dead” as the gunman fired toward his head.

Angel Colon described the horrific night he survived during a news conference on Tuesday at the hospital. Appearing in a wheelchair with the doctors and nurses who treated him nearby, Colon talked about what happened early Sunday at the Pulse nightclub.

He says the gunman shot a girl next to him and then shot his hand and his hip. He says he pretended to be dead and the gunman kept firing his gun.

Colon says at times the gunman was shooting people who appeared that they had already been killed.

He thanked the hospital staff and said “I will love you guys forever.”

— Associated Press

The ex-wife of the shooter at a gay Florida nightclub says the man enjoyed nightlife, but she’s not sure if he had any homosexual tendencies.

“When we had gotten married, he confessed to me about his past ... that he very much enjoyed going to clubs and the nightlife, and there was a lot of pictures of him,” Sitora Yusufiy told CNN Tuesday from Denver. “I feel like it’s a side of him or a part of him that he lived, but probably didn’t want everybody to know about.”

The comments follow reports from customers at the gay nightclub that shooter Omar Mateen was seen there regularly. One told The Associated Press that Mateen tried to pick up men there.

Asked whether she thinks her ex-husband was gay, Yusufiy said: “I don’t know. He never personally or physically made any indications while we were together of that. But he did feel very strongly about homosexuality.”

She says it’s possible he hid feelings about being gay.

The couple were married in 2009 and divorced two years later. Yusiufiy has said he was abusive.

Omar Mateen.

(AFP/Getty Images)

A high school acquaintance of the gunman in Sunday’s mass shooting in Orlando said Omar Mateen was a “regular dude” until the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.

“He started acting crazy, joking around the fact that 9/11 happened, making plane noises on the school bus and pretending he was slamming into the building,” said Robert Zirkle, who rode the school bus every day with Mateen in Stuart, Fla., 15 years ago.

“He was happy that Americans were dying. He made that very clear. I don’t know if he was always a Muslim radical, but he was excited, hyped up. We were all, like, ‘What are you talking about?’” Zirkle recalled.

Zirkle said he and other students warned Mateen that he needed to stop. “We told him if he didn’t stop making noises, we were going to beat him up.”

Zitkle, who now lives in Tennessee, was a freshman at Martin County High School at the time. Mateen, he said, attended Spectrum Alternative School, a separate public school.

“He was really out there,” he said of Mateen. “He had no friends. He had people who were cordial with him or would ask him how he was doing. Only a few people spoke to him. I was one of the few who would. He was a ‘Seinfeld’ kind of guy.”

— Jennie JarvieRead More

CNN reporter and anchor Anderson Cooper had trouble making it through a reading of the names of the 49 victims of Sunday’s shooting in a gay nightclub in Orlando -- his voice breaking with emotion as he recited the list of the dead.

Cooper, one of the few openly gay major television news personalities, made a point of refusing to name the gunman who carried out the massacre, 29-year-old former security guard Omar Mateen.

“We begin tonight with their names, the names of the 48 out of 49 people who have so far been identified, victims of the deadliest mass shooting in American history,” Anderson began.

“There’s one name I want to tell you that you will not hear during this broadcast tonight, one picture of a person you won’t see,” he went on. “We will not say the gunman’s name or show his photograph. It’s been shown far too much already.”

The victims ranged from photographers to nurses to those who dreamed of becoming emergency medical technicians.

--Times staff

Church bells tolled 49 times, once for each of the dead, as thousands of people gathered in downtown Orlando Monday night to mourn.

The crowd hoisted rainbow flags on the lawn outside the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts, where community leaders -- Muslim, LGBT and Latino -- spoke about the Sunday morning massacre at Pulse, a gay nightclub.

Brittany Torres, 18, made a sign honoring two friends killed in the shooting: Oscar Aracena and Simon Adrian Carillo.

Aracena had been her manager when she worked at a local McDonald’s, and as she talked about the way he encouraged her to succeed, Torres started to cry.

Her sister Lesly Colon, 26, also brought a sign for the victims, and recalled Pulse as a special, safe space. It was the first club she went to when she came out five years ago.

Her mother, 44-year-old Madeline Baez, said she goes to gay clubs with her daughter. She said that other families have not been as accepting but thought that might change in the wake of the shooting.

“A lot of families are coming together just because, what if it’s my child?” she said.

Jaime Soto, 28, also knew some of the victims, including a man killed with his boyfriend, who left behind a 5 year-old son.

He spotted the boy’s mother in the vigil crowd, wearing a shirt bearing a picture of the couple arm in arm. She began to cry, then so did Soto as they embraced.

“It really shows you it’s just one community. It’s not just LGBT -- it’s affecting us all,” Soto said.

— Molly Hennessy-Fiske

Thousands gathered in downtown Orlando late Monday to mourn those killed in a deadly shooting at a nearby gay nightclub, listening as church bells tolled 49 times in honor of the victims.

Hoisting rainbow signs and flags on the lawn outside the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts, the crowd heard from Muslim, LGBT and Latino community leaders, and others affected by the Sunday morning attack on Pulse nightclub.

Brittany Torres, 18, of Orlando had made a sign honoring two friends killed in the shooting: Simon Adrian Carrillo Fernandez and Oscar Aracena-Montero, who had been her manager when she worked at McDonald’s. As she talked about the way he encouraged her to succeed, Torres started to cry.

Her sister, Lesly Colon, 26, also brought a homemade sign for the victims, and recalled Pulse as a special, safe space. It was the first club she went to when she came out five years ago.

Madeline Baez, 44, said she goes to gay clubs with her daughter and accepts who she is. She knows other families have not been as accepting, but that may change in the wake of the shooting, she said.

“A lot of families are coming together just because, ‘What if it’s my child?’” she said.

Jaime Soto, 28, of Orlando also knew some of the victims, including a man killed with his boyfriend who left behind a 5-year-old son. He spotted the boy’s mother in the vigil crowd, wearing a shirt bearing a picture of the couple arm in arm. She began to cry, as did Soto, as they embraced.

“It really shows you it’s just one community. It’s not just LGBT -- it’s affecting us all,” Soto said.

--Molly Hennessy-Fiske

White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest announced Monday night that President Obama will travel to Orlando, Fla., on Thursday “to pay his respects to victims’ families, and to stand in solidarity with the community as they embark on their recovery.” No more details were available. Obama spoke on the shooting earlier Monday in the Oval Office:

The gunman who carried out Sunday’s massacre at a gay nightclub in Orlando had been a customer there many times and used a gay dating and chat app, according to people who frequented the club.

Kevin West, a regular at Pulse, said Omar Mateen messaged him sporadically over the last year using the app Jack’d.

But they never met – until early Sunday morning.

West was dropping off a friend at the club when he noticed Mateen crossing the street wearing a dark cap and carrying a cellphone at about 1 a.m., an hour before the shooting.

“He walked directly past me. I said, ‘Hey,’ and he turned and said, ‘Hey,’” and nodded his head, West said.

At least four regular customers of Pulse told the Orlando Sentinel on Monday that they believe they had seen Mateen there before.

“Sometimes he would go over in the corner and sit and drink by himself, and other times he would get so drunk he was loud and belligerent,” said Ty Smith, who also uses the name Aries.

He saw Mateen at the club at least a dozen times, he said.

“We didn’t really talk to him a lot, but I remember him saying things about his dad at times,” Smith said. “He told us he had a wife and child.”

As soon as West saw photos released of Mateen after the shooting, he said, he drove to his local police station, where FBI officials showed him a photo of Mateen on a computer screen. “I said, ‘That’s him,’” West said.

He said he turned over his phone and Jack’d login to the FBI and as of late Monday still had not received it back.

— Molly Hennessy-FiskeRead More

Sitora Yusufiy looked nervous in her CNN interview as host Erin Burnett asked her why she thought her ex-husband had frequented the gay club Pulse before his attack there Sunday.

“When we had gotten married, he confessed to me about his past -- that was recent at that time -- and that he very much enjoyed going to clubs and the nightlife,” said Yusufiy, who divorced Omar Mateen in 2011 and said he was abusive and unstable. “So, I feel like it’s a side of him or a part of him that he lived but probably didn’t want everybody to know about.”

“Do you think he was gay?” Burnett asked.

Yusufiy was silent for three seconds. She glanced to the side, shook her head a little, and said, “I don’t know.”

“He never personally or physically made any indication while we were together, of that,” Yusufiy continued. “But he did feel very strongly about homosexuality.”

— Matt Pearce

At a seniors’ center not far from the Pulse nightclub, families of victims were being summoned and, in most cases, given the formal notice that their child or sibling was among the dead.

They would file in, as couples clinging onto each other desperately, or in larger groups of extended relatives, passing under a large awning that read “Welcome,” and next to a hand-lettered sign saying “Pulse families.”

Hours later they would leave, some sobbing, embracing or rushing away. A black funeral parlor van arrived at one point.

“We know a little bit, that she was hiding in the bathroom,” Cesar Flores said of his daughter, Mercedez, 26.

Unlike some parents, Flores said he did not receive a frantic last-minute email or any other indication of what happened but started to look for Mercedez when he did not hear from her Sunday. He spoke to reporters after emerging from the center.

Sadness rang in his weak voice. He said he dreaded having to take his wife to identify their daughter’s body.

— Tracy Wilkinson

Donald Trump tried to claim the mantle of unity and inclusiveness — while simultaneously calling for an expansion of his ban against Muslim immigrants — in a scathing speech Monday in the aftermath of the Orlando, Fla., nightclub massacre.

Trump offered few policy specifics, mostly attacking Hillary Clinton and President Obama for mismanagement, political correctness and what he portrayed as liberal immigration policy.

His most notable policy shift involved a further extension of his indefinite ban on Muslims entering the country to include even more people.

Read More

Mexican authorities confirmed Monday that at least three Mexican citizens were among those killed in the Orlando club shooting. Officials were trying to confirm if another of the fatalities may have also been a Mexican citizen, the Mexican Foreign Affairs Secretariat said in a statement.

In addition, officials said, one other Mexican citizen -- identified as Javier Nava Coria, a native of Mexico City -- was injured in the mass shooting and remained in “stable” condition. Authorities provided no other details about the Mexican casualties.

In a statement, Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto expressed “solidarity for the relatives of the victims of this act of horror and terror.” Mexican officials said they were in touch with the families and providing assistance.

— Patrick J. McDonnell and Cecilia Sanchez

FBI agents keep watch during the L.A. Pride parade in West Hollywood on June 12.

(Mark Ralston / AFP/Getty Images)

After the mass shooting in an Orlando, Fla., gay nightclub Sunday, a well-known West Hollywood gay bar is considering making armed security guards a regular presence.

The Abbey Food & Bar upped its security presence during L.A. Pride celebrations in West Hollywood on Sunday, hours after the Orlando attack. The bar had 36 guards on duty, including visible, armed guards at the front and back entrances at all times, said Brian Rosman, a spokesman for the bar.

The Abbey is considering making armed guards a regular presence, especially during peak times such as the Pride event, Rosman said.

“It’s something we’re looking at, moving forward,” he said. “We’re going to talk more with the sheriff and City Hall to figure out the appropriate safety precautions.”

— Hailey Branson-PottsRead More

Amanda Alvear wanted to go to Pulse on Saturday night to sip on drinks and dance with her friends. Gay and lesbian clubs like Pulse were among her favorite bars because they were fun places where she felt safe to be who she was, her family said.

In a Snapchat video posted by one of her friends on Sunday, the 25-year-old is dancing to the beat of the music permeating the club. In a series of posts, she sipped on her drink and toasted the people watching her feed. Her crew of friends danced around her against the backdrop of glowing purple and blue lights.

But the next video set a different tone. Alvear held the camera close to her face, her brows furrowed and her eyes filled with confusion.

“Shooting,” she said.

More than 15 rounds fired off around her.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

It was her final post.

— Sarah Parvini

The headlines of leading newspapers across the country convey, in just a few words, the tragedy of the Orlando nightclub shooting.

“Most Deadly Night,” said Stars and Stripes. The Daily News in New York took a more political approach with “Thanks, NRA.”

In Florida, the Daytona Beach News-Journal summed up the attack in a single word: “Unimaginable.”

The Orlando Sentinel assembled a collection of front pages from coast to coast. To see a gallery of pages, click here.

— Steve Padilla

The White House is not about to dignify Donald Trump with a response.

Asked about the presumptive Republican nominee’s attacks on how President Obama handled the Orlando, Fla., nightclub massacre, Press Secretary Josh Earnest dismissed Trump’s criticism.

“When you are focused on something as big as helping the country respond to the worst mass shooting in the nation’s history ... it’s important not to get distracted by things that are so small,” Earnest told reporters at his daily briefing.

Read More— Michael A. Memoli

Florida Hospital has discharged six of the 11 Orlando, Fla., shooting victims who were admitted there, spokesman David Breen said. They are still treating five of them, who are all in fair condition. Breen said Florida Hopsital and Orlando Regional Medical Center are the only hospitals treating those wounded at Pulse.

— Molly Hennessy-Fiske

Though President Obama blamed lax gun laws Monday for the Orlando gunman’s ability to buy weapons, the White House is skeptical that the massacre will result in tighter restrictions on purchasing guns.

“It’s difficult to assess,” White House Press Secretary Josh Earnest said, but then he ventured that, if lawmakers weren’t moved to tighten gun laws after the Sandy Hook Elementary shooting in 2012, they probably won’t change their minds now.

“Seeing 20 first-graders get massacred in their classroom … might have [had] sufficient pull,” Earnest said. “And it didn’t.”

He called on those who backed efforts to curb gun violence to press lawmakers for a renewed legislative push.

“The only way we’re going to see the kind of change to our gun safety laws,” he said, “will be when individual Americans make clear to their representatives in Congress that this is a top priority.”

Asked whether Obama is “resigned” to the idea that he’s powerless to stop the epidemic of mass shootings, Earnest said he is not.

Obama, he said, is “quite intensely frustrated.”

— Christi Parsons

The City of Orlando has now released the names of 45 of the 49 shooting victims on its website. The city is only naming people who were killed in the attack once their next of kin have been contacted.

— Braden Goyette

To view Clinton’s speech, click to 44:00 in the video.

Gun stocks soared Monday morning in the first U.S. market opening since the Orlando massacre, as investors likely anticipated stronger gun sales in the face of calls for stricter gun control.

Sturm, Ruger & Co. stock surged about 10%, and Smith & Wesson Holding Corp. stock jumped more than 6% after the opening bell on Wall Street.

Investors have called it the “Obama surge”: When there is a mass shooting, PresidentObama calls for stricter gun control and gun sales soar.

— Matt Pearce

Senate Democrats will again try to ban gun purchases for terrorism suspects on the no-fly list, promising a renewed — if modest — political debate about gun violence in the aftermath of the Orlando shooting.

Even though gunman Omar Mateen was no longer on the watch list, the legislation from California Sen. Dianne Feinstein would give federal authorities the ability to block firearms sales to those suspected of terrorism.

Votes could come as soon as this week. But the bill was defeated on a largely party line vote six months ago following the terrorist shooting in San Bernardino and is not expected to do much better this time. Republicans, who have the majority in the Senate, and gun-rights advocates led by the National Rifle Assn. are mostly opposed to new restrictions.

“We have to think what kind of country and what kind of Senate we are going to be,” said Sen. Charles E. Schumer of New York, the No. 3 Democrat, announcing the new effort Monday.

“Are we going to take the painfully obvious steps … or are we going to bow down to the NRA?” he asked.

The NRA has opposed the bill, and the politics of gun control have been locked in a partisan standoff with little sign of resolution in an election year despite public outcry over mass shootings.

Broader gun control measures — including a ban on assault weapons — are not being pushed forcefully by Democratic leaders.

Fellow Democrats, including the two senators from Connecticut, have called Congress “complicit” in the gun deaths for its failure to control access to guns, including after the Newtown school shooting in 2012.

“I don’t know what it will take to change the mind-set of this Congress,” said Feinstein. “Without doing this, without making the change, we’re just asking for people to come into this country and go out and buy a gun … and that’s just not right.”

Feinstein said she had spoken to Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) about the bill.

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) said the chamber would hold a moment of silence Monday afternoon “to honor the victims of the Orlando tragedy.”

— Lisa Mascaro

Orlando gunman Omar Mateen told a 911 dispatcher he was attacking an LGBT nightclub on behalf of the leader of the Islamic State, but he also expressed solidarity with the 2013 Boston Marathon bombers and an American suicide bomber in Syria who was not affiliated with Islamic State, FBI’s Director James Comey said Monday.

Comey said Mateen’s statements added “confusion” about his inspiration for the attack, because Mateen had expressed loyalty to Islamist groups and figures that are opposed to each other.

While working as a courthouse guard in 2013, Mateen made “inflammatory and contradictory” statements to co-workers about having relatives in Al Qaeda, the radical Sunni terrorist group, Comey said. Mateen also claimed to be a member of Hezbollah, Lebanon’s Shiite militia, and his remarks drew an 11-month FBI investigation, Comey said. Both groups oppose Islamic State.

Comey said the FBI also briefly investigated Mateen in 2014 for allegedly watching videos by Al Qaeda propagandist Anwar Awlaki and attending the same mosque as an American who would later become a suicide bomber for Al Nusra Front in Syria -- another Al Qaeda affiliate opposed to Islamic State.

Both investigations were closed without charges.

J.K. Rowling.

(Lefteris Pitarakis / Associated Press)

The Harry Potter universe now includes real-life terrorism, with J.K. Rowling on Sunday mourning a victim of the Orlando, Fla., nightclub shooting who worked at Universal Studios Orlando’s Wizarding World.

“Luis Vielma worked on the Harry Potter ride at Universal. He was 22 years old. I can’t stop crying. #Orlando,” the “Harry Potter” author tweeted late Sunday.

She then retweeted comments from people who said they’d known Vielma and offered prayers to another victim who was said to be in intensive care.

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