
Source: Gerardo Mora / Getty
The FBI reveals, that the shooter, who has been identified as Omar Mateen of Port St. Lucie, Fla., opened fire around 2:02 am with an AR-15 style assault rifle and a handgun at the club. Gun fire exchanged next at 5 am.
This ‘horrific tragedy,’ as Florida Governor Rick Scott put it in his official statement this morning, has influenced ‘increased security measures’ for Sunday’s Capital Pride Festival in Washington, D.C. according to Mayor Muriel Bowser.
TIME puts this incident in context reporting: The death toll makes the attack deadlier than the 2007 Virginia Tech shooting, in which student Seung-Hui Cho shot 32 people to death before killing himself, and the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Conn., in which gunman Adam Lanza killed 27 people before killing himself.
This story is still developing.