News 13, the Bright House-owned Florida news nonstop, is reporting that roughly 45 minutes after the Orlando massacre, a caller claiming to be the shooter called the channel, saying the mass shooting was for ISIS.
"I will never forget the words he said to me," Matthew Gentili, the producer who answered the call, said in a News 13 interview.
"I'm the shooter. It's me. I am the shooter," the caller said. "I did it for ISIS. I did it for the Islamic State."
The FBI, which interviewed Gentili, wouldn’t confirm whether the call was in fact from the shooter, Omar Mateen. News 13, however, reports that its own research found the phone number used in the call did match Mateen’s.
Gentili said the call came in around 2:45 a.m. "I answered the phone as I always do: 'News 13, this is Matt.' And on the other end, I heard, 'Do you know about the shooting?'”
Gentili said he was aware of the shooting. "Yes, I'm getting calls. I am hearing reports of a shooting," he said. The caller then cut him off to identify himself as the shooter.
"He did it for ISIS, and he started speaking Arabic," Gentili said in the interview. "At the time, I didn't know what he was saying. He was speaking so fast. But it was... he was speaking fluently. Whatever language he was speaking, he knew it. And he was speaking it very quickly. And that is when I said to him, 'Sir. Please. Speak in English, please.'"
After a long pause, Gentili asked the caller if there was anything else he wanted to say.
"He said no and hung up the phone."
