Hundreds of people gathered at a church in Orlando, Florida, Tuesday night to mourn the 49 victims of Sunday’s attack on an LGBT nightclub, the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. More information has begun to emerge about the shooting at the Pulse nightclub as survivors of the attack tell their stories. Patience Carter was shot in both legs but survived, after being trapped in a bathroom with the shooter, Omar Mateen. She says she heard Mateen call 911 to say he was carrying out the massacre because he wanted the United States to stop bombing “his country.” Mateen was born in the United States; his parents are from Afghanistan. Carter gave her account on Tuesday.
Patience Carter: “And after that, he even spoke to us directly in the bathroom. He said, 'Are there any black people in here?' I was too afraid to answer, but there was an African-American male in the stall where most of my body was, majority of my body was, had answered, and he said, 'Yes, there are about six or seven of us.' And 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.’ And he just—he made a statement saying that it wasn’t about black people. This isn’t the reason why he was doing this. But through the conversation with 911, he said that the reason why he was doing this is because he wanted America to stop bombing his country.”