“He told me he could not stand or walk,” Fink later wrote in a report. He could see that the man had been shot at least once, in his right leg.
“I grabbed both of his wrists, and he grabbed mine. I dragged him outside of the club through the patio, and away from the building,” Fink wrote.
Then Fink went back in. Other people needed help.
Fink’s report was part of a 71-page document made public on Monday, the latest in the city’s ongoing release of public records related to the Pulse shooting. The June 12 shooting left 49 people dead and at least 53 injured.
Some public records requests have been denied by officials, who cite an ongoing investigation into the shooting and disagreements about whether the records fall under local or federal jurisdiction.
Some of the reports in the city’s latest release are heavily redacted. The reports were filed on June 27, about two weeks after the shooting.
In the documents, Orlando police officers describe the harrowing things they saw and heard: Patrons running out of the club, covered in blood. People who were injured. People who had died.
Officer Felix Monroig Santiago could see the bodies inside the Pulse nightclub.
He had responded to the club at 2:05 a.m., just three minutes after the first reports of a gunman inside the club. He got there and, once more officers arrived, went into the club through the patio on its east side.
“While inside, I observed multiple casualties on the ground near the bar area and could still hear shots being fired,” he wrote in a report released Monday night. “Once it was discovered (that) the suspect was barricaded in the restroom, I remained inside the club until SWAT officers arrived. I then remained on scene providing additional assistance.”
Officers Michael Ragsdale and Joseph Imburgio found a closed door on the north side of the building, Ragsdale wrote.
“I tried to open the door but I felt something pulling back on it, holding it closed,” Ragsdale wrote. “I announced that I was the Orlando Police Department and the door open(ed) freely. Once the door opened victims started running out.”
Ragsdale did not know where the shooter was, and in the chaos some of the patrons tried to run back inside, he wrote. He kept his gun drawn and pushed people out the door to safety.
Ragsdale went into the club and found what he described as a bathroom, which he cleared. The shooter was not there, he wrote.
He went back outside and met with another officer, Kyle Medvetz, who led him through an entrance on the south side of the club.
Together, they walked back inside.
“I remember (feeling) hands grab my ankles as I walked by the victims as they were asking for help,” Ragsdale wrote.
Officer Jeffrey Rine handed his department-issued rifle to another officer, who did not have one, and went into the club to try and remove the injured.
“By 0235hrs all of the surviving injured that were in the bar and dance floor area were removed,” he wrote.
Sgt. Noelia Pina had just parked near the club when she saw people banging on the doors at Orlando Fire Department’s Station 5, the closest station to the club, she wrote.
Two officers “transported two victims in their patrol cars as we were not getting any response from OFD,” she wrote. “I got on a different radio channel and requested headquarters call the fire station and request assistance. Sometime later the door opened and OFD personnel began assisting with victims.”
Officer Kelvin Vidro found a man who made it out of the club with a gunshot wound to his stomach, but collapsed in the parking lot of a nearby auto shop, he wrote. Vidro said he helped the man get to the OFD’s Station 5.
“I later entered the building and observed multiple victims on the ground,” he wrote, adding that he helped with getting the injured to the triage area set up outside a bagel shop.
Officer Russell Sayer, who said he ran to the club’s front doors, wrote that many of the people he saw were “blood soaked.” As he tried to help them get to safety, blood “covered my pants, arms, and boots.”
A few officers wrote that they could no longer wear the uniform pants, shirts and shoes they had on the day of the shooting because they were covered in blood.
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