America wakes up to a nightmare: Horrific attack on Orlando nightclub leaves fifty dead

This morn­ing, hun­dreds of mil­lions of Amer­i­cans woke up to the news that a man armed with an AR-15 assault rifle who had called 911 to announce that he was about to com­mit a heinous act in the name of the Islam­ic state group had bru­tal­ly slaugh­tered over fifty peo­ple at a gay night­club in Orlan­do and wound­ed many more before being killed in a shootout with police.

Today’s attack was a hate crime, a mass shoot­ing, and a ter­ror­ist attack all rolled into one. It’s hard to think of words to prop­er­ly describe it; hor­rif­ic seems like an under­state­ment. The FBI is tak­ing charge of the inves­ti­ga­tion and is try­ing to piece togeth­er what hap­pened, which could take a while.

“This is an open inves­ti­ga­tion. We’ve reached no defin­i­tive judg­ment on the pre­cise moti­va­tions of the killer,” said a weary and sad­dened Pres­i­dent Oba­ma from the White House Brief­ing Room. “The FBI is appro­pri­ate­ly inves­ti­gat­ing this as an act of ter­ror­ism. And I’ve direct­ed that we must spare no effort to deter­mine what — if any — inspi­ra­tion or asso­ci­a­tion this killer may have had with ter­ror­ist groups.”

“What is clear is that he was a per­son filled with hatred.  Over the com­ing days, we’ll uncov­er why and how this hap­pened, and we will go wher­ev­er the facts lead us.”

An ATF spokesman, speak­ing at a press con­fer­ence in Flori­da, said the gun­man had legal­ly pur­chased the AR-15 assault rifle used in the attacks along with anoth­er weapon (a hand­gun) in recent days. The weapons have already been traced, but the ATF did not divulge where they were pur­chased. The shoot­er had an active secu­ri­ty license and a firearms license, author­i­ties have said.

It’s not yet known why the shoot­er specif­i­cal­ly tar­get­ed the Pulse night­club, but there can be no doubt the shoot­er want­ed to attack the LGBT community.

As Pres­i­dent Oba­ma said:

“This is an espe­cial­ly heart­break­ing day for all our friends — our fel­low Amer­i­cans — who are les­bian, gay, bisex­u­al or trans­gen­der. The shoot­er tar­get­ed a night­club where peo­ple came togeth­er to be with friends, to dance and to sing, and to live.  The place where they were attacked is more than a night­club — it is a place of sol­i­dar­i­ty and empow­er­ment where peo­ple have come togeth­er to raise aware­ness, to speak their minds, and to advo­cate for their civ­il rights.”

Wash­ing­ton Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee and Ore­gon Gov­er­nor Kate Brown also rec­og­nized that the tragedy was a hate crime.

“Yes­ter­day it was such an hon­or to join Spokane’s inspir­ing cel­e­bra­tion where they, as many com­mu­ni­ties across the coun­try this week­end, were cel­e­brat­ing the progress we’ve made for our LGBTQ friends and fam­i­ly. It was an event marked by pride, love and joy,” said Gov­er­nor Jay Inslee.

“This morn­ing we wake up to see this hor­rif­ic tragedy. We are all wait­ing to learn more about the moti­va­tions of this man but there is no doubt that today is one of unimag­in­able sor­row for the LGBTQ com­mu­ni­ty, the peo­ple of Flori­da, for our nation and for peo­ple every­where who are sick­ened and shocked by such an act of hatred. It’s dif­fi­cult to even find the right words in a time like this.”

“Tru­di and I, and every Wash­ing­ton­ian, send our deep­est con­do­lences to the peo­ple of Orlan­do and Florida.”

“Trag­i­cal­ly, what we are wak­ing up to in the Unit­ed States today is that the grow­ing num­ber of mass shoot­ings in the U.S. increas­es the num­ber of Amer­i­cans with a per­son­al con­nec­tion to a Rose­burg, a Charleston, a Columbine, and now, an Orlan­do,” said Gov­er­nor Kate Brown.

“Two days ago I par­tic­i­pat­ed in Umpqua Com­mu­ni­ty Col­lege’s com­mence­ment exer­cis­es just nine months after ten lives were lost in a mass shoot­ing on its Rose­burg cam­pus. As we cel­e­brat­ed UCC stu­dents reach­ing a major mile­stone, we also hon­ored the community’s resiliency.

“I call upon us as a state to move beyond the polit­i­cal debate about gun con­trol and instead bring respon­si­ble gun own­ers and com­mu­ni­ty advo­cates togeth­er to find solu­tions. We must take action to bet­ter pro­tect com­mu­ni­ty safety.”

“My thoughts are with the vic­tims in Orlan­do, their loved ones and fam­i­lies, and I extend my sin­cere grat­i­tude to the first respon­ders. As Ore­go­ni­ans, we share in the pain and mourn­ing rever­ber­at­ing across the Unit­ed States and world today.”

We at NPI believe in the idea that love is stronger than hate. We thank the cen­tral Flori­da Mus­lim com­mu­ni­ty for swift­ly unit­ing with local LGBT lead­ers to sup­port the vic­tims and the fam­i­lies of the vic­tims of this attack. A vig­il has already been planned for tonight by the Islam­ic Cen­ter of Orlando.

Vig­ils are also being planned here in the Pacif­ic North­west. In Seat­tle, a vig­il will take place at Cal Ander­son Park on Capi­tol Hill. Seat­tle May­or Ed Mur­ray will speak. The vig­il will begin at 8 PM Pacif­ic Time, orga­niz­ers say.

In Port­land, there will be a vig­il at 7 PM at NW Couch and NW Broad­way.