Pulse Nightclub Shooting 2nd Anniversary: 7 Facts About Orlando Massacre

June 12 marks the second anniversary of the Pulse Nightclub shooting in Orlando, Florida. Shooter Omar Mateen opened fired in the packed gay nightclub, which left scores of people dead and several others wounded.

The shooter was finally shot dead by a police SWAT team when they raided the building with an armored vehicle and stun grenades three hours after Mateen began firing at 2 p.m. EDT.

While the then President Barack Obama called the attack “homegrown extremism” at the time, President Donald Trump later chose to use the opportunity to emphasize the importance of gun ownership.

“You take Pulse nightclub,” he said in an interview in February 2018. “If you had one person in that room that could carry a gun and knew how to use it, it wouldn’t have happened, or certainly to the extent that it did.”

Here are 7 lesser-known facts about the incident:

Matteen used to work as a security officer at the St. Lucie County Courthouse in Fort Pierce, Florida. He was removed from his post and transferred to a job as a security guard at a nearby residential golfing community after the county sheriff grew concerned about his demeanor and his “inflammatory” comments, the New York Times reported.

Mateen shot about one-third of the people inside the nightclub when he opened fired. A staggering 49 people were killed and 53 more were wounded in the shooting – the second worst attack since 9/11. Ninety percent of the victims were either Hispanic or of Hispanic descent, including Mexican, Colombian and Dominican. A special webpage listing the names of the victims was set up by the City of Orlando.

An assault rifle similar to the AR-15 and a handgun was used by the shooter during the attack. Both the weapons were legally bought by Mateen within a week prior to the shooting, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said.

According to statements provided to the police by Mateen’s second wife, Noor Salman, hours after her husband carried out the mass shooting, she knew about Mateen’s deadly plan but chose to keep silent about it.

“I am sorry for what happened. I wish I’d go back and tell his family and the police what he was going to do,” Salman said. “I knew when he left the house he was going to Orlando to attack the Pulse nightclub. I wish I had done the right thing but my fear held me back. I wish I had been more truthful.” She was eventually acquitted of having any involvement in the shooting by a jury which comprised of people from Orlando.

Salman also revealed Mateen started watching videos of Jihadi beheading people shortly before the carrying out the shooting and wondering aloud, “How bad would it be if a nightclub was attacked? What would make people more upset, an attack at Disney or a nightclub?”

According to a transcript provided by the SITE Intelligence Group, which tracks jihadist propaganda, the Islamic State group (ISIS) claimed responsibility for the attack in a statement released over an encrypted phone app. It said the massacre “was carried out by an Islamic State fighter.”

Former FBI director, James Comey, said Mateen was on a terrorism watch list from 2013 to 2014, the bureau never got hold of enough evidence to charge him after investigating his hate comments, foreign trips and questionable behavior.