2017 NJ State PBA Convention Paradise Island, Bahamas
Taking the Pulse
Orlando SWAT commander provides the inside story of response to nightclub shooting n BY MITCHELL KRUGEL n PHOTOS BY ED CARATTINI, JR.
Within 33 minutes of the first shots being fired at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando on June 12, 2016, law enforcement officers pulled out 27 victims to safety. Eight of those were rescued when officers figured out that pushing an air conditioning unit through its opening in the wall would create an escape route.
The largest single-shooter mass attack in history at the time, a terrorist act of grisly proportions reached its tactical and operations conclusion after so many similar twists and turns. Orlando Police Department SWAT Team Deputy Commander Lieutenant Scott Smith detailed many of those pivotal moments when he provided a behind-the-scenes look at the response for those who could appreciate it in a way he hoped and intended. Members of the NJ State PBA who saw Smith’ s presentation at the annual convention witnessed an unprecedented review of the incident.
“ At 0208 hours, I pulled up and that was my‘ oh-sh—’ moment,” Lieutenant Smith related about his arrival on the scene early that Sunday morning.“ I heard that rate of gunfire and realized this is going to be f----- up. An officer was heard saying,‘ If you’ re alive, raise your hand.’”
The man with his finger on the Pulse response – a 20-year veteran SWAT team member – went on to share some details about how officers from 27 agencies combined to eventually corner the man who killed 49 people and wounded 58 others at Orlando’ s largest LGBT nightclub. They learned that this was a hate crime at nearly 2:35 a. m., 32 minutes after the initial shots were fired, when an Iranian officer translated a message Omar Mateen called into Orlando dispatch reporting that he was the shooter.
“ Our officer told us,‘ This guy is going to die and he is going to take as many people with him as he can,’” Smith added.“ That was the first time we really knew what level terrorist we were dealing with.”
Mateen pledged his loyalty to ISIS during the same call. When officers found nearly 500 rounds in Mateen’ s truck after he had been taken out, well, who knows how many more places he would have hit and people he would have shot had he made it out of Pulse.
Some other details Smith shared about what transpired that morning turned the needle on the incredulous meter well past 10. The OMG looks spread through PBA members like a wave at Met Life Stadium.
He first praised the work of teams at Orlando Regional Medical Center, who were a big reason why“ we are dealing with only 49 deaths.” Officers were able to put wounded victims in patrol cars and unmarked trucks and drive them to the facility less
than a mile away after many were evaluated at a triage set up at an Einstein’ s bagel shop across the street from Pulse.
Pulse actually had an off-duty cop working an extra-duty assignment inside because it was one of those places where fights always broke out in the parking lot at closing time. But only one extra-duty officer on site might have been the reason that Mateen chose Pulse.
“ You can drive through a core of the five-block downtown area where there are 80 or 90 bars or nightclubs, and you won’ t go 10 yards without seeing at least two cops in patrol cars parked at an intersection,” Smith explained.
Pulse was outside the downtown Orlando core, and Officer Adam Gruler, a 19-year veteran traffic homicide investigator, was on extra duty armed only with his issued handgun. Mateen did not see or know there was an officer inside, which Smith said was what probably saved Gruler’ s life.
Gruler was able to get off a“ signal 43,” a call for,“ officer needs help.” Smith noted how that helped speed up the police action. Initially, it was a patrol response to the shooting, but when SWAT made the scene and it turned tactical, Smith assumed the lead position, communicating to his chief and chiefs of other responding agencies.
The detail and intensity with which he presented so much of what happened that morning certainly was not lost on this group from the NJ State PBA. Only police officers can empathize with what it must be like even more than a year later to have witnessed 26 people who were shot and killed strewn about the dance floor, and another similar havoc in the bathroom where Smith’ s team eventually cornered Mateen.
But can you imagine the pulse rate that Smith and his team of five tactical officers must have felt when first breaching the
52 NEW JERSEY COPS ■ OCTOBER 2017