Orlando Nightclub Survivor: Gunman Said 'I Don't Have A Problem With Black People' During Attack
ORLANDO (CBSNewYork/CBS News) -- A survivor of the Orlando nightclub massacre revealed that the gunman tried to spare the lives of black people.
Patience Carter told reporters during a news conference at Florida Hospital Orlando on Tuesday that the gunman, Omar Mateen, asked people hiding in the bathroom at the gay nightclub Pulse if there were any black people in here.
Carter said she was too afraid to reply, but another black person in the bathroom did.
"I don't have a problem with black people. This is about my country. You guys suffered enough," Carter said Mateen replied.
Carter, 20, said that Mateen pledged his allegiance to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria while he was on the phone with police negotiators and that he wouldn't stop the attack until America stopped bombing his country. Mateen was born to Afghan parents in New York.
Carter described the "piles" of bloody bodies in the bathroom and that Mateen executed a final three people, including a stranger who was shielding her, as police were blowing open the bathroom walls.
"If it wasn't for that person shielding me it would've been me shot and I wouldn't be sitting here today."
Carter said that she was afraid of drowning "in bloody water" as explosives broke the pipes in the wall.
Carter was in Orlando on vacation with a friend's family. Her friend, Akyra Murray, was one of the 49 killed during the attack.