This week a judge ruled that recordings of the 911 calls made by the shooter in Pulse nightclub could be made public.
However, family members of the victims told the judge on Monday they don’t want recordings of the calls from inside the club released.
Margaret Schreiber, Orange Circuit Judge, ordered the city of Orlando to release the audio of the shooter’s calls at the hearing this week.
The transcripts of those calls have already been made public, but this is the first time the public’s heard the voice of Omar Mateen. He called 911 to tell the operator he was the shooter. His conversations with a crisis negotiator who tried to get him to surrender in the hours after he first opened fire in the crowded club are also included in the recordings.
Just how much more can we learn from the calls the city still hasn’t released? The family of one of the victims wants the transcripts of those remaining calls to be made public to fill in the timeline of the shooting, but the mother of another victim said on Monday that hearing the audio would force her to relive the shooting.
90.7's Matthew Peddie was joined in the studio with Janet Reddick, Orlando Sentinel's breaking news editor, and Elyssa Cherney, who has been covering this story for the Orlando Sentinel, to talk about the legal battles to get those calls released.