In a 2:08 a.m. call to 911 from the Pulse nightclub, a man whispered that he was hiding "in a back room" and wasn't injured.

The dispatcher told the man to stay where he was if he felt safe and tried to get off the phone.


"No," the caller said. "He's gonna kill us."

The dispatcher asked him to stay on the line while he transferred the call to OPD. But seconds later, the call dropped.

With the flood of calls coming in, 911 operators had no choice but to disconnect with victims still inside the club as the three-hour ordeal unfolded so they could answer other calls.

The 911 calls — the first from inside the Orlando club — reveal panic and fear the morning of the June 12 mass shooting, which left 49 people dead and more than 50 injured.

The recording was one of 21 more released by the Orange County Sheriff's Office on Wednesday. Orange County's 911 center receives emergency calls meant for the Orlando Police Department when Orlando's lines are overflowing. The sheriff's office previously released 20 calls.

The City of Orlando will fight releasing 28 minutes of recorded conversation between the Pulse nightclub shooter and a police Crisis Negotiation Team while Omar Mateen held wounded hostages in a bathroom during the massacre, according to court documents filed Wednesday.

The Orlando Police Department has already allowed the release of more than 30 calls, but the remaining calls received that night are being reviewed to see if they need to be redacted. Wednesday afternoon, the city produced a court-ordered log of the 911 calls that would be released.

The itemized list said 73 of 284 tracks (which could contain more than one call) made to the Orlando Police Department and 142 of 161 calls to the Orlando Fire Department, "have been or soon will be released." The city of Orlando is citing a state law that allows an exemption for calls when the killing of a person is depicted in the other 230 calls.

The city will fight the release of 28 minutes of recorded conversation between Pulse shooter Omar Mateen and OPD's Crisis Negotiation Team using the same exemption. Mateen spoke with negotiators three times between 2:48 a.m. and 3:24 a.m., after he barricaded himself in a bathroom with hostages.

In one of Wednesday's calls, the dispatcher had difficulty hearing the caller. A 2:11 a.m. recording is heard: "Hello! This is 911, are you there? This is 911, are you there? Can you talk to me? Can you talk to me? Can you talk to me? [Muffled talking in the background] Hello, this is 911, can you talk to me?"

A minute and a half in, the caller started talking: "We're at Pulse, there's a shooting. A mass murder."

The dispatcher said help was on the way and asked if the caller could describe the shooter or his location. Then the line goes dead. The dispatcher called back.

"Ugh, this is very unnerving," she said, waiting for the caller to pick up again. It went to voicemail.

At 2:16 a.m., another call came in and was then dropped. The dispatcher called back. A voice answered: "We're at the nightclub, Pulse nightclub. There's a shootout! There's a big-ass shootout! I ran as fast as I can." She can be heard panting and said she didn't see the shooter.

At 2:17 a.m., a caller told dispatchers, "There's a shooting. There's dead people everywhere. My brother is calling me right now saying there is dead people everywhere and he is hiding in the stall. Hurry up! He's inside the club. There's shooting. They're in trouble. There's so many dead people there. Hurry up!"


By 2:43 a.m., one dispatcher told a woman whose brother who was trapped in a bathroom, "We are in the club. We are searching for everyone. We are pulling victims out. Please just have patience … It's going to take a while before we figure out where everyone's at. As soon as we find them, I'm gonna take your info and we are going to call you."

Later in the night, callers alternated between controlled and angry.

At 4:42 a.m., a woman, her voice calm, said her fiancé was shot, and she wanted to know whether he was brought to Orlando Regional Medical Center for treatment.

"We won't know that, I'm sorry," the dispatcher said, suggesting she try to call ORMC. "Right now, the situation is still ongoing, and unfortunately they may be too busy to give you information."

The woman took a deep breath. "OK, thank you so much," she said.

Minutes later, an agitated man called dispatchers: "This is the seventh time I'm calling you guys. My girlfriend is in the club Pulse, hiding in the bathroom there. Four dead, two wounded, and they're about to die," he said. "I gave you guys the name, I gave you guys the phone number, and nobody has called her."

The dispatcher transferred him to her supervisor.

"It's been over an hour and nothing has been done," the man told the supervisor.

"OK, sir, stuff is being done, I can promise you that. Stuff is being done," the supervisor said.

The man wasn't appeased.

"I'm watching the news right now, and they don't know that there's people inside the club, and there's four dead, and the cops aren't doing [expletive,]" he said.

Two dozen media organizations, including the Orlando Sentinel, have been involved in a legal battle to have all the calls released. Earlier this month, the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the U.S. Department of Justice told the city of Orlando that the recordings no longer need to be protected as part of the active investigation into the attack.

Partial transcripts of calls and reports of radio traffic from officers on the scene have been released since June. But the 911 calls, especially from those inside the nightclub, may provide more information about the events that unfolded during the three-hour siege that ended when police killed Mateen, who was holding hostages.

Staff writers Elyssa Cherney, Caitlin Doornbos, Gal Tziperman Lotan, David Harris and Janet Brindle Reddick contributed to this report.