Choice and chance
A gunman enters the Pulse nightclub. Those in his path have only a heartbeat to react.
BY THE STAFF OF THE TAMPA BAY TIMES
June 20, 2016
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It is 2 a.m., half an hour until closing time in the 4,500-square-foot club. Under the strobe lights, to the throb of reggaeton, more than 300 people crowd the bar, cash out tabs, squeeze in one last dance.
When the shooting starts, people tumble over one another, trying to get out. Their lives depend as much on where they are standing as on what they do next.
Near the stage,
Patience Carter drops to the floor and scoots backward. Akyra Murray, 18, joins her.
Near the stage,
Patience Carter drops to the floor and scoots backward. Akyra Murray, 18, joins her.
They make it outside. But their friend, 20-year-old Tiara Parker, is missing.
They can wait for police. But they make a different choice.
They can wait for police. But they make a different choice.
“We gotta get Tiara.”
They push back into the club.
Back by the bar, Yvens Carrenard, 29, is just steps away from a storage room the size of a walk-in closet. He shuts himself and four or five others inside. Panicked and cramped, they wait.
The shooting doesn’t stop.
“I could see the shooter, there, just shooting people.”
On the dance floor,
Brenda Marquez McCool tells her son:
Get down. The shooter takes aim.
Joe Galligan, 24, is on the floor, waiting for his moment to run.
Joe Galligan, 24, is on the floor, waiting for his moment to run.
A break in the gunfire.
This is your second, he tells himself.
Now.
He makes it out.
Jason Gonzalez, 33, wrestles his way outside, thinking his friends Shane Tomlinson and Angel Colon are right behind him.
Shane, 34, is shot through the back. He dies on the dance floor.
Angel, 26, is on the ground, bleeding. His leg is shattered.
Shooter Omar Mateen moves through the room, firing into the bodies lying on the dance floor, making sure they are all dead.
Angel hears the shots get closer.
A bullet hits his hand. His hip.
A bullet hits his hand. His hip. He survives because he does not scream.
Drag queens huddle in the dressing room, praying to God, saying goodbyes.
Drag queens huddle in the dressing room, praying to God, saying goodbyes. They eye an air conditioning unit and wonder if they can pull it from the wall. But it is more important to be quiet.
It feels like forever until police find them and push in the wall unit, creating a small opening. They force their bodies through.
Angel Santiago is trapped in a men’s bathroom stall with more than a dozen others. They do not know it, but their positions in this tiny space will determine whether they make it out alive. Angel is crouched under the sink.
He hears the shots get closer. He can smell gunpowder.
“Shh. Be quiet, be quiet.”
Bullets tear through the wall, hitting his foot and knee.
Bullets tear through the wall, hitting his foot and knee.
People around him are dying.
The killer crosses to the other bathroom.
Angel can stay there and wait or try to escape. “Don’t go anywhere,” someone tells him. ”You’ll get killed.”
Angel can stay there and wait or try to escape. “Don’t go anywhere,” someone tells him. ”You’ll get killed.”
But he hears a police radio.
He drags himself under the stall, out of the bathroom and toward the officers.
He drags himself under the stall, out of the bathroom and toward the officers. “There are people shot,” he says. He points the cops toward the bathrooms.
By 5 a.m.,
Patience Carter has found Tiara. They are hostages in the women’s room. Patience is bleeding and in pain. Tiara has a bullet in her side. Akyra isn’t moving.
For the past three hours, Patience has been trapped with the killer. She has heard him ranting into the phone. She has seen him pace. She has registered the sound of his gun jamming.
Police shoot the killer dead. They help up Patience and the other survivors.
Patience clutches Akyra's cellphone, so she can give it back to her when she sees her friend again.
But Akyra dies from her wounds.
Patience emerges from the club full of gratitude,
Patience emerges from the club full of gratitude, weighted by guilt.
Developed by Times staff writers Eli Murray, Nathaniel Lash, Eli Zhang and Martin Frobisher; written by staff writers Alexandra Zayas and Michael LaForgia; and reported by staff writers Steve Contorno, Hannah Jeffrey, Kathleen McGrory, Dan Sullivan, Tracey McManus, Claire McNeill, Laura Morel, Zachary T. Sampson, Josh Solomon, Jack Suntrup and Kathryn Varn. Times researchers Carolyn Edds, John Martin, Caryn Baird and computer-assisted reporting specialist Connie Humburg contributed to this report. Information from interviews with witnesses and CNN footage was used in this report.
