Prosecutor fired for insulting Orlando shooting victims
June 24, 2016
According to the Associated Press news agency, Assistant State Attorney Kenneth Lewis said that downtown Orlando was "a melting pot of third world miscreants and ghetto thugs."
He also said on Facebook posts dated June 12 that downtown Orlando should be leveled, adding that all nightclubs "with or without random gunmen, they are zoos."
State Attorney Jeff Ashton told AP that Lewis had violated his office's social media policy. Lewis was told that he will be terminated by the end of June - a decision which he has indicated he will appeal, remarking in his disciplinary response that the policy violated his free speech.
Gunman Omar Mateen killed 49 patrons at the Pulse gay nightclub near downtown Orlando on June 12.
Funeral for gunman amid media lawsuit
Authorities announced in the meantime that gunman Omar Mateen's funeral had been held in South Florida. His death certificate states that his body was buried at the Muslim Cemetery of Hialeah Gardens near Miami. The document didn't state when exactly Mateen had been buried.
The cemetery could not immediately be reached for comment. A number of the victims have also had their funerals held in past days.
A long list of media organizations have meanwhile filed a lawsuit against the city of Orlando, seeking the disclosure of 911 phone recordings from the Pulse nightclub shooting. Those behind the suit include the Associated Press and the CNN news network.
Noting that the massacre was the latest in a series of mass shootings in the US, the lawsuit said there was a strong public interest in fully evaluating how police and other first responders reacted during the most critical phases of the tragic event. The lawsuit also challenges the withholding of communications between Mateen and the Orlando Police Department before he was killed by police.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) earlier in the week had released a partial transcript of a 911 call made by Mateen from the club, while also giving brief summaries of three other calls by the gunman.
ss/bk (AP, Reuters, WFTV)