Worst mass shooting in US history: 50 slain at gay nightclub

It had been an evening of drinking, dancing and drag shows. After hours of revelry, the party-goers crowding the gay nightclub known as the Pulse took their last sips before the place closed.
That's when authorities say Omar Mateen emerged, carrying an AR-15 and spraying the helpless crowd with bullets.
Witnesses said he fired relentlessly - 20 rounds, 40, then 50 and more. In such tight quarters, the bullets could hardly miss. He shot at police. He took hostages.
When the gunfire finally stopped, 50 people were dead and dozens more were critically wounded in the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history.

Mateen, who law enforcement officials said had pledged allegiance to Islamic State in a 911 call around the time of the attack, died in a gun battle with SWAT team members.
Authorities immediately began investigating whether the assault was an act of terrorism and probing the background of Mateen, a 29-year-old American citizen from Fort Pierce, Florida, who had worked as a security guard.

The gunman's father recalled that his son recently got angry when he saw two men kissing in Miami and said that might be related to the assault.
Thirty-nine of the dead were killed at the club, and 11 people died at hospitals, Mayor Buddy Dyer said.

Jon Alamo had been dancing at the Pulse for hours when he wandered into the club's main room just in time to see the gunman. "You ever seen how Marine guys hold big weapons, shooting from left to right? That's how he was shooting at people," he said.
"My first thought was, oh my God, I'm going to die," Alamo said. "I was praying to God that I would live to see another day."
Pulse patron Eddie Justice texted his mother, Mina: "Mommy I love you. In club they shooting." About 30 minutes later, hiding in a bathroom, he texted her: "He's coming. I'm gonna die." As Sunday wore on, she awaited word on his fate.

At least 53 people were hospitalised, most in critical condition, and a surgeon at Orlando Regional Medical Center said the death toll was likely to climb.
The previous deadliest mass shooting in the US was the 2007 attack at Virginia Tech, where a student killed 32 people before killing himself.
Mateen's family was from Afghanistan, and he was born in New York. His family later moved to Florida, authorities said. His ex-wife, Sitora Yusufiy, told reporters that her former husband was bipolar and "mentally unstable."
Mateen was short-tempered and had a history with steroids, she said in remarks televised from Boulder, Colorado. She described him as religious but not radical. He wanted to be a police officer and applied to a police academy, but she had no details.

The couple was together for only four months, and the two had no contact for the last seven or eight years, she said.