Orlando clubber who sent heartbreaking texts to mom confirmed as one of 50 dead

The petrified son who sent his mother texts telling her he ‘loved her’ as the marauding gunman opened fire inside Pulse nightclub has died.

Eddie Justice was trapped in a nightclub bathroom when he contacted his mother Mina for the last time in a series of messages.

The City of Orlando has now confirmed he was one of the 49 partygoers who were shot dead by Islamic extremist Omar Mateen on Sunday morning.

    

 

Eddie, who worked as an accountant, ran into the women’s bathroom to escape Mateen but he and a group were cornered.

He asked Mina to call police as she arrived outside the Orlando gay nightclub in a desperate attempt to find her son.

Eddie then told her ‘I’m gonna die’ as Mateen discovered where he was hiding and took him and others hostage.

‘Mommy I love you. In the club they shooting,’ a text from Eddie Justice to his mother read.

‘U ok,’ she responded before her son wrote back ‘trapp (sic) in bathroom.’

His mother then asked which club he was in and asked him to call her.

‘Call them momm (sic). Now. I’m tell I’m bathroom. He’s coming. I’m gonna die,’ Eddie wrote.

His mother then responded: ‘They say stay them (sic) is anybody hurt. Which bathroom u in.’

Mina said she was going through hell as she stood outside the nightclub waiting to learn more information regarding the shooting.

‘I think it’s all of them in the bathroom. I could hear a lot of people crying,’ she told WOFL on Sunday as she recalled a phone conversation with her son.

The mother said at one point during her correspondence with Eddie, she made him get off the phone with her and text instead while she asked him questions because he was fearful he was going look at the shooter and get shot.

‘He [Eddie] said, “He has us and he’s fixin to kill us. That was it,”‘ the mother told the station.

Mina and a dozen family and friends remained outside at a hotel that has become a staging area for relatives awaiting news on Sunday. But today their worst fears have been realized.

Mateen burst into the nightclub at around 2.00 local time armed with an assault rifle, handgun and explosive device.

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. Around 5am, authorities sent in a SWAT team to rescue them, Police Chief John Mina said.

The shooter exchanged gunfire with 14 police officers at the club, which had more than 300 people inside.

Police said US citizen Matten, shot dead at least 50 people and injured 53 others before being killed by police in what authorities described as a ‘domestic terrorism incident’.

At least two police pickup trucks were seen taking what appeared to be shooting victims to the Orlando Regional Medical Center.

Pulse Orlando posted on its own Facebook page around 2.00: ‘Everyone get out of pulse and keep running.’

The incident follows the fatal shooting late on Friday of 22-year-old singer Christina Grimmie, who was killed after a concert in Orlando.

Omar Mateen shot dead 49 people and injured dozens more in the worst mass shooting on US soil

Kevin James Loibl, 27, killed himself after he shot her dead. Grimmie was a YouTube sensation and former contestant on ‘The Voice.

On Saturday, Pulse nightclub had posted on their Facebook announcing they were putting on a ‘Latin Night.’

Another post advertising the night read: ‘Calling all our Latinos, Latinas & everyone that loves a little Latin flavor! It’s time to party tonight! Here’s a little something to play while getting sexy tonight!’

The club posted on its Facebook page around 2am: ‘Everyone get out of pulse and keep running’

Just before 6.00, the club posted an update: ‘As soon as we have any information we will update everyone’

Around the time for closing during early hours on Sunday, witnesses recalled a man walking in before gunshots rang out through the club.

Jon Alamo said he was at the back of one of the club’s rooms when a man holding a weapon came into the front of the room.

‘I heard 20, 40, 50 shots,’ Alamo said. ‘The music stopped.’

Club-goer Rob Rick said it happened around, 2.00, just before closing time.

‘Everybody was drinking their last sip,’ he said.

He estimated more than 100 people were still inside when he heard shots, got on the ground and crawled toward a DJ booth.

A bouncer knocked down a partition between the club area and an area in the back where only workers are allowed. People inside were able to then escape through the back of the club.

Police did not immediately name the gunman or provide a possible motive for the attack but officials have classified the rampage as a ‘domestic terrorism incident’

Javer Antonetti, 53, told the Orlando Sentinel he was near the back of the dance club when he heard gunfire.

‘There were so many (shots), at least 40,’ he said. ‘I saw two guys and it was constant, like “pow, pow, pow.”‘

Christopher Hansen said he was in the VIP lounge when he started hearing gunshots.

He continued to hear shooting even after he emerged, where police were telling people to back away from the club. He saw injured people being tended to across the street.

‘I was thinking, are you kidding me? So I just dropped down. I just said please, please, please, I want to make it out,’ he said.

‘And when I did, I saw people shot. I saw blood. You hope and pray you don’t get shot.’