[narrator] In Florida, police fight to stop
an armed assailant in a nightclub.
We start hearing the bang, bang, bang.
[gunshots]
[officer speaking]
[indistinct chatter]
[man] We're literally running into that fire.
[officer speaking]
Who does that?
[narrator] In Washington state,
a brazen thief is on the run.
[man speaking]
[dispatcher speaking]
[man speaking]
[siren wailing]
[officer] We did not have time to come up with a game plan.
[officer 1 speaking]
-[officer 2 speaking] -[officer 3 speaking]
I had no idea if he was just waiting for us around
a corner or if he had set up somewhere to get us.
[officer speaking]
[indistinct radio chatter]
[man] Sheriff's office, come outside.
[ominous music playing]
[narrator] In the heart of Central Florida
is the city of Orlando.
Omar Delgado patrols Eatonville,
six miles north of the city.
[officer speaking]
we're patching with Metro now [indistinct]
It was just a regular patrol night for me.
I received a call from the Orlando Police Department,
an emergency broadcast to every police officer
that has a radio in all of Central Florida.
Officer needs assistance.
There's an active shooter inside club Pulse
with multiple casualties down.
Getting there, my adrenaline is pumping.
[officer] Hey, guys, not too far [indistinct]
We start running in toward the club
and now you have hundreds of people
trying to get out of the club.
[officer speaking]
-[man speaking] -[officer speaking]
-[officer 1] Cross the street. -[officer 2] Go.
You don't know what it feels like
to hear somebody desperately
trying to save their own lives.
[officer 1] Any injured? Any injured?
[officer 2 speaking]
-[officer 3 speaking] -[officer 2 speaking]
[Delgado] And just seeing the fear
that they had in their faces.
[officer speaking]
[woman speaking]
[officer speaking]
We're literally running into that fire.
Who does that? Who does that?
Well, first responders do, you know, police officers do.
It's a crazy feeling.
[siren wailing]
I came to work at Pulse nightclub,
was always upbeat,
and there wasn't any tension.
[narrator] Off duty Orlando PD Officer Adam Gruler
works as nightclub security.
The Orlando Police Department, uh, allows the officers
to work what's called extra duty jobs
that are not paid but by private business.
[singer] ♪ I know what I know ♪
That night, as the people are starting
to flow in, it's a normal Saturday night.
People coming, having a good time,
partying, enjoying themselves.
[Tiara] We were in Orlando going on vacation.
My cousin Akira just graduated from high school.
We were super proud of her.
And so the vacation was kind of like
a going away party,
um, because in August, she was going away for school.
I was invited to my friend Tiara's family vacation
at the time,
it was my first time being in Orlando, Florida.
My first time getting on a plane.
So there was a lot of firsts.
[Tiara] We don't know the area.
Pulse came up as like one of the top two choices.
[Patience] It was super colorful.
You could hear the energy inside the club.
It was very infectious already.
[upbeat music playing]
[Christopher] I'd just moved here.
I was... I was moving from Ohio, uh, to Orlando.
I felt like Orlando was a place
that was gonna be open and accepting.
So I heard about Pulse and was like,
I was really excited.
A friendly place for LGBT community.
They were celebrating Latin night.
I had my American flag T-shirt.
[upbeat music playing]
The music was vibing.
It was loud, it was nice.
People were laughing, having a good time.
[Patience] We were having the best night of our lives.
Literally, we were saying over and over and over again
that Pulse was gonna be the destination
that we would come back to every single night of the trip.
[upbeat music playing]
[Gruler] Was just waiting for two o'clock in the morning
to come because that's, uh, you know,
last call, no more alcohol is gonna be served
and about 10 minutes after that,
the music would start slowly dying down
and then the people would start leaving.
[Patience] My feet were hurting, everybody's feet was hurting.
And at that point, I just asked,
"How are we getting home?"
[ominous music playing]
[gunshot]
And then seconds later, that's when we heard...
[gunshot]
We start hearing the bang, bang, bang, bang.
[gunshots]
I remember hearing these noises at first
because there's like four different DJs in this bar.
Um, this could be from one of the songs,
it could be from anything.
It's like I felt the vibration in my body,
the bass, the boom, boom, boom.
I'm still trying to understand what's going on right now.
Before you know it, everyone's shoving everybody
to make it out.
[gunshots]
I hear the gunshots...
but time and, uh, reality seem to separate.
And in that brief moment,
it seemed like time froze
and then time caught up with reality.
And that's when all the people started
falling out of the building as fast as they could,
um, from every, um, exit
that they possibly could.
[officer speaking]
[indistinct chatter]
I could see that some of them
were clearly injured, they were bleeding.
Uh, some of them said they had already
been shot, but they were mobile.
And as long as they were mobile,
I told them to keep running and keep running.
Um, my concern was the shooter.
Um, and that's what I was focused on.
[upbeat music playing]
[Patience] The music was still going on with
the gunshots.
So it was... It was very loud
but also hard to discern what was really going on.
I was in that trance for a second and completely forgot
that I was standing next to an exit door.
I just really wish that I just would've ran out of the exit.
And I remember Patience and Akira,
I remember they freaked out.
Everybody who was in complete chaos in our room
of the club was now rushing towards the bathrooms.
So we processed in our minds together
to just follow everybody into the bathrooms.
And we did.
And there was one larger handicapped stall
in the bathroom that we ran into
and we were the last few people
to enter that bathroom stall and closed the door.
[Christopher] All I could hear in my head
was the soundtrack of screams and echoing, um, chaos.
Making it out to the patio and still hearing
this firing going off and I'm like,
"Oh, I can't die tonight like this."
There was a door, but I made my way out and I ran
and then I still hear the pow, pow, pow.
[Gruler] There was no doubt in my mind
that this was an assault rifle.
I was out-powered immediately.
There was no doubt, um,
that the assault rifle
was more powerful than my handgun.
And at that point, I called on my, uh,
police radio, a signal 43, officer needs help.
Shots fired.
That alerts all surrounding jurisdictions,
uh, that an incident is occurring
and as many law enforcement officers
as possible can converge.
[officer 1 speaking]
[officer 2 speaking]
[officer 1 speaking]
[officer 2 speaking]
[officer 1 speaking]
[officer 2 speaking]
[Tiara] We were in the women's bathroom.
It had to be like 20 of us in that one stall
on top of each other.
Everyone in the bathroom like, "Shh, be quiet, be quiet, be quiet."
Um, we were hoping, I guess we were all hoping
that the gunman didn't come into the bathroom.
[woman 1 speaks]
[woman 2 speaks]
[woman 1 speaking]
[woman 2 speaking]
-Shh. -[gunshots]
[indistinct chatter]
It wasn't until we heard the footsteps of the gunman
actually enter our bathroom
is when it became real for us.
[indistinct chatter]
[gunshots]
[ominous music playing]
At this point, the initial gunfire
has now stopped...
so the active shooter scenario portion
of this is now
beginning to slightly change
and we're forming our teams ready to enter
into the building.
-[officer 1 speaking] -[officer 2 speaking]
[officer 1 speaking]
-[woman speaking] -[officer 1 speaking]
[officer 2 speaking]
-[officer 3 speaking] -[officer 2 speaks]
-[officer 1 speaking] -[officer 2 speaking]
[officer 1] Okay.
[officer 1 speaking]
[officer 2 speaking]
[officer 1 speaking]
Our main concern is we don't know where the shooter is yet.
This nightclub, uh, has three distinct areas
and we don't know where he is.
We believe he's in the bathrooms.
We haven't confirmed this yet.
There's a team that is focusing and concentrating
on identifying where the shooter is
and containing him.
[officer speaking]
[indistinct chatter]
[officer 1] [indistinct]
[officer 2 speaking]
[officer 1 speaks]
[Gruler] Teams enter into the building
both through the patio and through
one of the windows that was smashed out.
[upbeat music playing]
The nightclub was still dark.
Music was still playing.
You just stepped in a pool of blood.
Was everywhere.
There were bodies everywhere.
The scene is like nothing you've seen before
and nothing you wanna see again.
Um, but we have a job to do,
and we are focused on that.
[indistinct radio chatter]
[officer speaking]
[woman speaking]
[device beeping]
[indistinct radio chatter]
[indistinct chatter]
[Delgado] We didn't know where the shooter was.
The floor was-was very slippery.
It was... It was full of blood.
There's a lot of glass on the ground... On the floor.
At that time, the shooter began shooting.
[officer speaking]
[gunfire]
[man speaking]
[officer 1 speaking]
[officer 2 speaking]
[device beeping]
[officer 1 speaking]
[officer 3 speaking]
Inside Pulse.
[officer 4 speaking]
[officer 1 speaking]
[officer 2 speaking]
-[man] Go. Hard cover, guys. -[officer 2 speaking]
[officer 5 speaking]
[officer 2 speaking]
[officer 5 speaking]
[officer 1 speaking]
[officer 6 speaks]
[officer 2] Are there people in there?
Look, I don't know if we can get through.
[officer 1 speaking]
[officer 2 speaking]
I didn't know where was he shooting
because we couldn't see.
We can just hear the assault rifle
and it was so loud in there.
It was... I mean, it was deafening.
[indistinct chatter]
[gunshots]
[officer] Get down. Get down.
[indistinct chatter]
[officer 1] Let's go guys. Hard cover.
[officer 2] What did you say?
[officer 1 speaking]
We were trapped in our bathroom with the gunman.
I could see him walking back and forth.
I remember staring him dead in his face.
And he, like, kind of cackled,
but I remember like being completely still.
I even stopped breathing.
-[officer speaking] -[woman] Women's bathroom.
[man speaking]
[narrator] The gunman has barricaded himself
in the nightclub bathrooms.
[device beeping]
[officer 1 speaking]
[officer 2] Roger that.
[officer 3 speaking]
-[officer 4 speaking] -[officer 3 speaking]
[officer 2 speaking]
[officer 3 speaking]
[woman speaking]
We knew that we have now contained the shooter.
[officer speaking]
It was now a hostage situation.
Now he's in control
and he has these individuals in this room and it's one of those,
"Do you bust in there
and potentially shoot...
uh, you know, a victim?"
[911 dispatch speaking]
[officer 1 speaking]
[officer 2 speaks]
[officer 1 speaking]
[officer 2] That patio right there.
[911 dispatch speaking]
[officer] County 128.
[bleep].
After the in... The first initial gunfire
with the shooter who's now in our bathroom,
I looked down at my leg and I saw
a hole and blood coming out.
[Tiara] I was shot in my right arm.
I was shot in my left side under my left breast.
And I have a graze wound across my hip.
My cousin Akira is just like,
she's looking in, like, confusion too.
Akira immediately jumped on her phone.
I heard her saying to her parents,
"They shooting in here. They shooting in here.
I don't wanna die. I don't wanna die."
[Gruler] While we're inside the club, our dispatch is
receiving multiple 911 calls from inside of the bathroom
saying that they are inside there with the shooter.
[911 dispatch speaking]
[man speaks]
[911 dispatch speaking]
[man speaking]
[911 dispatch speaking]
[man speaks]
[911 dispatch speaking]
[man speaking]
[911 dispatch speaking]
-[woman speaking] -[Vannessa speaking]
[woman speaking]
[Vannessa] Okay.
[woman speaking]
[Vannessa speaking]
[woman speaking]
[Vannessa speaking]
[woman speaking]
[Vannessa speaking]
[woman speaking]
[Vannessa speaking]
[woman speaking]
[Patience] I really hoped and believed that those calls
were gonna make it through somebody
who were actually going to,
if not save us, but at least let us know
that they know that we're there.
[Vannessa speaking]
[woman speaking]
[Vannessa speaking]
[Delgado] Now, the command center is setting up
the team outside.
So now you have your hostage negotiator arrives on scene.
And now he's in communications with the individual.
[officer speaking]
[gunman speaking]
[officer speaking]
[gunman speaking]
The hostage negotiator, your number one goal
is to try to end the situation peacefully.
They're also trying to see what he's thinking.
Why he's doing what he's doing.
The gunman...
he spoke in very scattered language.
It was so random,
and that's what added to that mysterious,
terrifying character trait of his
because he would say things that didn't make sense.
[officer speaking]
[gunman speaking]
We find out that the shooter is aligning himself
with a terrorist organization.
[gunman speaking]
[officer speaking]
[gunman speaking]
[Tiara] I remember laying there
and when that man said that he had enough bombs
to light a city block...
I remember my life flashing before my eye.
That one, uh...
That one was the breaking point for me
because I literally grabbed my cell phone
and I said my goodbye text to my kids.
[suspenseful music playing]
[officer speaking]
[gunman speaking]
He conveys that he may have explosives with him.
And that was a big red flag,
that changed the situation dramatically.
[officer speaking]
They ordered us to get out.
A lot of us did not.
I was not gonna leave...
the club until I made sure everybody was out.
That's the same mentality
that these other officers had.
[Gruler] They knew that we had hostages
inside of that bathroom.
The officers are not leaving their posts.
They know the risks.
The officers chose not to leave.
The officers chose to stay.
[officer 1 speaking]
[officer 2 speaking]
[woman] 10-4.
[officer 2 speaking]
That absolutely changes
the scenario immediately.
And I think it added urgency to the situation
to resolve it and to take him out.
Our SWAT team had begun to assemble.
[gunshot]
[officer 1 speaking]
[officer 2] Just trying to light your path.
[narrator] The shooter controls access to the bathroom
from inside the club.
[suspenseful music playing]
[narrator] Using a controlled explosion,
SWAT break in through the outside wall.
So after being in the bathroom for so long,
what felt like days, um...
I remember...
hearing the police officer on a bullhorn.
He said, "Anybody...
who can hear me...
that can move, get up against the wall now."
[911 dispatch speaking]
[gunfire]
And all you see was sparks just flying, just...
And I'm looking through this hole in the debris
to see all this go on.
[gunfire]
I'm getting burned...
by the bullets like ricocheting all over the place.
But all I could do was just kinda like hunch up.
[gunfire]
They exchanged an extreme, like, just rapid gunfire.
And you could see just like the light
of the sparks going on.
[Delgado] And this literally took maybe...
three, four seconds.
All I heard was,
"Subject down."
And that was it.
That was the end of it.
[narrator] The suspect is pronounced dead at the scene.
[dramatic music playing]
[Patience] They discovered on the way to the hospital
that I had been shot in both legs.
And at that time, I was separated
from Tiara and Akira.
[Tiara] Now, my mom got a phone call from my aunt.
And my mom let out
this belting scream.
Akira did not make it out of that bathroom.
It was this instant guilt,
this feeling like if I had said something differently
or done something differently,
I started to feel it was my fault.
Akira was such a wonderful individual.
We had a strong relationship.
So when she passed, it just seemed like, you know,
I lost my backbone.
[dramatic music playing]
[Christopher] It's hard to let Pulse go.
[Gruler] This experience has not only affected me personally.
It's affected my family.
It's affected the families of the victims.
There's my cousin's name.
I will always be so, like, astonished with,
like, how the world responded to this tragedy.
I will always be forever grateful and...
it was so much love around the world.
The biggest thing that I would want people to understand
is how such a tragedy
can really connect the community.
The LGBT community and the community at large
from around the world came together.
Pulse will not... not take over my life,
but is a chapter of my story.
[Gruler] I think about Pulse constantly.
It's always on my mind
but I try to think about it more
in a positive light
for the recognition of the victims
to keep their names and their memories alive.
We just don't wanna let go of that.
[tense music playing]
[narrator] In Washington state,
just south of the Canadian border,
is the city of Bellingham.
[dispatcher speaking]
[woman speaking]
[dispatcher speaking]
[man speaking]
[tense music playing]
[dispatcher speaking]
[man speaking]
[dispatcher speaking]
[man speaking]
-[officers speaking] -[sirens wailing]
[suspenseful music playing]
[siren wailing]
[Peter Tran] We were just in the patrol vehicle...
and we switched gears almost immediately.
There's no time to prepare or discuss
what was going to happen.
It was,
"We need to get to Walmart now."
[sirens wailing]
[dispatcher speaking]
[narrator] Officer Tran is three months
into his field training.
He's on patrol with his training officer,
Corporal Keller.
Started my career as a dispatcher
at the 911 Center.
In 2013,
there came a time where I was taking so many calls
and had no officers to send
and I decided that it was a good time for me
to become one of those officers to get sent.
[dispatcher speaking]
To go from the dispatcher seat
to the patrol seat...
it was a different response.
[officer speaking]
[Tran] This incident was the toughest test
that I had faced.
[Keller speaking]
[Tran speaking]
[Tran] We got there within a couple minutes.
[Keller speaking]
[Tran] We did not have time
to come up with a game plan.
[Tran speaking]
[suspenseful music playing]
[Keller speaking]
[Tran speaking]
[Keller speaking]
[Tran speaking]
We made the decision
who was going to take what gun.
[Keller speaking]
[Tran speaking]
And we were the first ones in the building.
[Keller speaking]
[Tran speaking]
[Keller speaking]
[Tran speaking]
[Keller speaking]
[Tran speaking]
[Keller speaking]
[Tran speaking]
[man speaking]
[Tran] Walmart, it's always busy.
It was eerily quiet.
I had no idea where this guy was currently at,
if he was just waiting for us around a corner
or if he had set up somewhere to get us.
It felt uncomfortable.
Uncomfortable knowing that...
I was going into something I hadn't faced before.
[Keller speaking]
[Tran speaking]
The information given to us through dispatch
was that someone had gone to the sports area
where the guns are displayed...
broke out, took a gun.
So that's where we headed towards.
[Keller speaking]
[Tran] We stayed in the main aisle,
shoulder to shoulder,
so I could cover one area
and my trainer could cover another.
His armor protects me and my armor protects him.
[Keller speaking]
[Tran speaking]
[Keller speaking]
[Tran speaking]
[Keller speaking]
[Tran speaking]
[Eric Osterkamp] I was in my patrol car
and one of the calls started showing up as a red call.
That's when we have a crime of violence
or a pretty serious crime that's occurring.
[sirens wailing]
[man speaking]
[Keller speaking]
[Tran] We proceeded towards
what sounded like an alarm,
which goes off when someone uses an emergency exit.
[Keller speaking]
[Tran] It turns out that he had used the emergency exit
to exit Walmart.
[man speaking]
[officer speaking]
[Osterkamp] We do have pretty large
homeless population in Bellingham.
We have multiple very large camps
behind Walmart there.
It's a large parcel of land,
the area of about 20 football stadium.
Now, we have someone who's armed
and someone who appears to be bent on doing violence
out and about in the woods.
[officer speaking]
[Tran] There were a lot of officers
at the entrance into the woods
coming up with a game plan.
[officer speaking]
[Osterkamp] We started setting up,
kind of, a safety perimeter.
[officer speaking]
We're gonna get two teams together.
[officer speaking]
[officer] Yeah.
[officer speaking]
Our K9 officer was gonna lead the way on the track
to try to capture this person.
[officer speaking]
[Woody speaking]
[Tran] The wooded area behind Walmart
has several trails that branch off.
[officer speaking]
[Tran] Transient population there
have built these tent cities.
[officer speaking]
[Osterkamp] The woods back there are very dangerous.
You just never know what you're gonna run into.
[suspenseful music playing]
To go into a busy Walmart,
break into a display case, taking the gun,
that's pretty brazen.
And that concerns me.
He just didn't care.
[tense music playing]
[officer speaking]
[Tran] The layout is so vast,
there's a lot of potential threats
or where a threat could be hiding.
[officer speaking]
[man speaking]
[officer speaking]
[Tran] I had not been involved
with anything to this extent before.
[officer speaking]
[Tran] Knowing that we're going after someone
who has guns...
[officer speaking]
that required me to stay on high alert the entire time.
[officer speaking]
[dramatic music playing]
[dispatcher speaking]
My name is Austin Streubel
and I'm currently employed as a Deputy Sheriff
with the Whatcom County Sheriff's Office.
There was a large police response
to the Walmart area.
I was gonna respond
'cause I have my K9 partner who could be used.
Apex is my current partner.
K9 gives us a lot of additional tools.
They have better hearing than we do.
They have better vision than we do.
And their sense of smell is so much better than ours.
So we use them to enhance our ability
to locate fleeing suspects or evidence
as well as alert us when there's danger
that we don't know about.
[suspenseful music playing]
[dispatcher speaking]
[Tran] This is going to be a difficult K9 track,
knowing how many people are back there,
how many people walk these trails,
and how much contamination
of the scent trail there could be.
[officer speaking]
[man speaking]
[officer speaking]
[Osterkamp] Some information started coming in
about who this person was.
[officer speaking]
We had a description of him.
[officer speaking]
-[man speaking] -[Tran] And we get his name.
[officer speaking]
[man speaking]
-[officer speaking] -[man speaking]
[officer speaking]
[Osterkamp] We heard that the suspect
was actually trying to carry out
a vendetta on someone.
[officer speaking]
[Osterkamp] So, at that point, we started getting concerned.
[officer speaking]
[Osterkamp] When you're in the woods,
you can never ever cover everything around you.
[officer speaking]
My God.
Someone could be anywhere in these woods
and it's very nerve-racking.
[officer speaking]
[Osterkamp] All you're thinking about is that threat.
[officer speaking]
[dispatcher speaking]
[officer speaking]
[suspenseful music playing]
[Streubel] I noticed that there wasn't a lot
of containment to the north,
so I went to a road north of Walmart.
[narrator] Deputy Austin Streubel
sees someone matching the suspect's description.
[Streubel] At that point, I was by myself,
but not all by myself 'cause I did have Apex with me.
My initial reaction to seeing him
was that this guy is exhausted,
but that doesn't make him less dangerous.
[Apex barks]
[Streubel] Started giving him commands to get on the ground.
He slowly complied with that
and walked over the grass and laid down.
[officer speaking]
[narrator] Deputy Eric Strand joins Deputy Streubel
and together, they arrest the suspect.
[man speaking]
-[officer speaking] -[suspect speaking]
You have the right to remain silent...
[dispatcher speaking]
-[officer] Holy [bleep]. -[officer speaking]
[officer] Yeah!
[officer speaking]
[Osterkamp] Unless we confirm
that it's the person that we're searching for,
we are still doing our job.
[Strand speaking]
-[man speaking] -[Strand speaking]
[Streubel] He wouldn't even tell us his name.
It was on us to put the pieces together
where the evidence may be.
[Strand speaking]
[man speaking]
[Strand speaking]
-[Streubel speaking] -[Strand] Okay.
[Streubel] Seeing as how this guy just carried the shotgun,
was sweating on it.
[Apex barking]
I knew it was gonna smell very strongly
and it would be pretty easy for Apex to locate.
-[officer speaking] -[man] [indistinct]
[Streubel] And he actually started tracking
where the suspect had walked.
[officer] Okay.
[man speaking]
[officer speaking]
[man speaking]
When Deputy Allen looked over the fence
and he saw the shotgun laying
on the other side of the fence in the grass,
it was very clear that that was the shotgun
that the suspect had just discarded.
[officer speaking]
[laughs]
[officer speaking]
[Streubel speaking]
-[officer speaking] -[Streubel speaking]
[Streubel] He was tracking along through the field,
suddenly he stopped, turned around and came back.
[officer speaking]
[Streubel speaking]
[officer speaking]
[narrator] Jimmy Brashears is charged
with first degree burglary,
reckless endangerment, and theft of a firearm.
He is awaiting trial.
[dramatic music playing]
[Tran] After responding to something like that,
it solidified that I made the right choice.
I'm now in a position to be able to do something
about those types of dangerous people in the world.