Omar Mateen, 29, is said to have paused during a three-hour siege to
telephone emergency dispatchers three times and to post internet
messages from inside the Pulse nightclub professing his support for
Islamist militant groups.
U.S. to reveal details of Orlando nightclub gunman's 911 calls
U.S.
authorities were due on Monday to release partial transcripts of 911
calls made during last week's mass shooting by a gunman who slaughtered
49 people at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida, before being killed by police.
Omar Mateen,
29, is said to have paused during a three-hour siege to telephone
emergency dispatchers three times and to post internet messages from
inside the Pulse nightclub professing his support for Islamist militant groups.
The FBI
was due to hold a news conference near the club at 11 a.m. EDT (1500
GMT) to provide an update on the investigation and to release the
partial transcripts of the 911 calls.
Attorney General Loretta Lynch said they would include the "substance of his conversations"
recorded as Mateen carried out the deadliest mass shooting in modern
U.S. history, but not any pledge of loyalty he is alleged to have made
to the Islamic State militant group.
Authorities
have said preliminary evidence indicates Mateen, who worked as a
security guard, was a mentally disturbed individual who acted alone and
without direction from outside networks.
Lynch, who is due to visit Orlando on Tuesday, told CNN
on Sunday that investigators have been focused on building a full
profile of Mateen, a New York-born U.S. citizen and Florida resident of
Afghan descent, who has been described by U.S. officials as "self-radicalized" in his extremist sympathies.
The
Pulse massacre, which also left 53 people wounded, led to a week of
national mourning and soul-searching over access to firearms and the
vulnerability to hate crimes of people in the gay, lesbian, bisexual and
transgender community.
While in Orlando, Lynch will meet with investigators, as well as survivors and loved ones of the victims.
The massacre has triggered an effort to break a long-standing stalemate in Congress over gun control.
The
Senate was set to vote on Monday on four competing measures - two from
Democrats and two from Republicans - to expand background checks on gun
buyers and curb gun sales for people on terrorism watch lists.
Donald Trump,
the presumptive Republican nominee for the Nov. 8 presidential
election, has said he shares the goal of keeping guns out of the hands
of people on watch lists.
Trump said on Monday he
was referring to security staff, not patrons, when he said that if more
people had been armed in the nightclub, fewer would have died.
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