Families of some of the 49 people killed in a massacre at an Orlando nightclub were to mourn and bury their dead yesterday, a day after US President Barack Obama met survivors and said the US must act to control gun violence.
Funerals are expected to be held over the next two weeks.
Anthony Luis Laureano Disla, 25, like many of those killed in the Pulse club mass shooting, was from Puerto Rico. He was to be buried yesterday, according to the Newcomer Funeral Home, a day after more than 150 friends and family mourned him at a wake.
Photo: EPA
Obama, who traveled to Orlando on Thursday and met survivors and families of those who died, told reporters: “I held and hugged grieving family members and parents, and they asked: ‘Why does this keep happening?’”
He urged the US Congress to pass measures to make it harder to legally acquire high-powered weapons like the semi-automatic rifle used in the attack on Sunday.
Obama and US Vice President Joe Biden were in Orlando after a US-born gunman claiming allegiance to various Muslim militant groups carried out the deadliest mass shooting in modern US history.
During the shooting rampage the gunman, Omar Mateen, exchanged text messages with his wife, CNN reported on Thursday, as well as posting on Facebook and placing a telephone call to a television station.
Police killed Mateen, 29, a US citizen born in New York to Afghan immigrants.
Obama, who has visited the families of those killed in mass shootings in towns from San Bernardino, California, to Newtown, Connecticut, since becoming president, laid flowers at a memorial at the Pulse nightclub.
The Islamic State group claimed responsibility for the attack, but US officials have said they do not believe Mateen was assisted from abroad. A married couple also claiming allegiance to the Islamic State group shot dead 14 people in San Bernardino in December last year.
Twenty-three of the 53 wounded from Sunday remained hospitalized, six in critical condition, according to the Orlando Regional Medical Center.
CNN reported, citing a law enforcement official it did not identify, that Mateen exchanged text messages with his wife, Noor Salman, during the three hours he was holed up in a bathroom inside the nightclub. Salman is under investigation to find out whether she knew about Mateen’s plans ahead of time.
The massacre put pressure on Congress to act.
Mateen carried out the killings with a weapon and handgun that had been legally purchased, although he had twice been investigated by the FBI for possible connections with militant Islamist groups.
Senator John Cornyn of Texas, the No. 2 Republican in the Senate, said the chamber would most likely vote on four gun control measures on Monday.
However, no formal deal between the parties for votes was announced and it was unclear when and how the Senate would proceed with the votes, which would involve amendments to an appropriations bill.
Republicans, who hold a 54-person majority in the 100-seat Senate, have blocked a number of Democratic-backed gun control measures over the years, saying that they infringed on Americans’ constitutional right to bear arms.
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