A mother has recounted the last text she received from her terrified son after a gunman opened fire inside a Florida nightclub.
Mina Justice was outside the club trying to contact her 30-year-old son Eddie Justice, who texted her when the shooting happened and asked her to call police.
He told her he ran into a bathroom with other club patrons to hide and then wrote "he's coming."
"The next text said: 'He has us, and he's in here with us,'" Mina Justice said. "That was the last conversation."
Screen captures from WFTV appearing to showing the messages between the mother and son showed Eddie had sent his mother a text saying "I love you" before informing her there was a shooting taking place.
"Mommy I love you. In the club they shooting," a text from Eddie Justice to his mother read.
His mother then asked which club he was in and asked him to call her."U ok," she responded before her son wrote back "trapp (sic) in bathroom."
"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."
She told WOFL her son Eddie told her he was being held hostage inside a women's bathroom and that he was going to die.
"I think it's all of them in the bathroom. I could hear a lot of people crying," she told the station as she recalled a phone conversation with her son.
The worried mother-of-three said she did not know if her son was okay or how many other people were with him inside the bathroom. At this time, his condition is not known.
She mentioned she heard at the time that there were two shooters involved and that people were hurt.
When asked how her son sounded, she responded: "Bad, just afraid he's gonna die."
The mother told WOFL that 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.
Police said a gunman, who has since been identified as US citizen Omar Matten, shot dead at least 50 people and injured 53 others in a crowded gay nightclub before being killed by police in what authorities described as a 'domestic terrorism incident'.
Police Chief John Mina also said the shooter had some sort of "suspicious device."
He said the suspect exchanged gunfire with an officer working at the club around 2am, then went back inside and took hostages.
Around 5am, authorities sent in a SWAT team to rescue the hostages, and the suspect then died in a gunfight with those officers.
An estimated 320 people were inside the club at the time of the shooting.
Posts
