Orlando Victim Says Shooter Omar Mateen Tried to Spare Black People: ‘He Said Black People Had Suffered Enough’

Story by Lovebscott.com

Patience Carter, a woman who was shot in the Orlando attack at Pulse nightclub, said that gunman Omar Mateen told her and other victims hiding in the bathroom that he did not “have a problem with black people,” that he thought they “have suffered enough.”

He added that he was “doing this to get America to stop bombing his country.”

According to Patience, she and her crew were waiting for an Uber home when the shots first rang out. She didn’t immediately register what was happening, but she began crawling towards the door and eventually made it outside. That’s when she realized her cousin was missing and went back inside to get her.

Because of the gunfire, she ended up taking cover in the bathroom with a group of people.

“It still wasn’t real to me yet — I was still Snapchatting after we squeezed into the stall,” she said.

Soon after they got into the stall, Omar Mateen entered the bathroom and began shooting.

At first, Patience said she thought it was a BB gun because she felt small objects hitting her legs. She soon realized it was pieces of the stall door flying toward her. She got shot in both legs. People in the stall began dropping to the floor.

“Bodies were piled on top of each other on the toilet seat,” she said. “There were handprints on everything, and blood.”

After shooting at the stall, Omar Mateen made a 911 call in the bathroom, Patience said. “He said the reason why he was doing this is he wanted America to stop bombing his country.”

When he got off the phone, he asked the people in the stalls if there were “any black people” in the bathroom. A man next to Patience said there were “six or seven of us.” Omar responded that he “didn’t have a problem with black people,’ adding that ‘You guys have suffered enough’” at the hands of white Americans.

Watch Patience tell her story and recite a poem she wrote in dealing with this experience below.