Florida, Washington, And Hollywood Respond to Orlando Mass Shooting

Presidential hopefuls Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump were among those expressing shock and grief at the loss of a reported lives during a mass shooting at a Florida nightclub late last night.

Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer told police that 50 were dead and 53 more injured after a gunman with a handgun and an automatic rifle entered Pulse, a nightclub that caters to the LGBT community.

Local officials describe the shooting as an act of domestic terrorism, with unconfirmed speculation that the shooter had a religious agenda. The gunman, identified as Omar Mateen, reportedly took hostages at the nightclub after the initial shooting spree, and was killed in a gunfight with the Orlando SWAT team when they decided to move in to rescue the hostages and get medical care for injured victims.

“We do have suggestions that that individual may have leanings towards that, that particular ideology,” said FBI assistant agent in charge of the agency’s Tampa division, Ron Hopper, when asked about the possibility that Mateen was an Islamic extremist. “But right now we can’t say definitively, so we’re still running everything around.”

The SWAT team moved in around 5 a.m., three hours after the first officer responded at 2:02 a.m.

The attack is being described as the worst mass shooting in U.S. history, and one that likely breaks with a trend, as most recent mass shootings have not had an explicitly political bent.

The shooting is already starting to look like it may shape the upcoming election: Republican Donald Trump has crafted much of his image around being tough on Islamic extremism, while Democrat Hillary Clinton has made gun control a key issue in the wake of a number of high-profile mass shootings.

It isn’t yet clear whether Mateen — who was reportedly “on the radar” to federal officials but not the subject of an investigation — acquired his guns legally or not. He was an US-born American citizen whose parents had immigrated from Afghanistan.