Calling the people in the bathroom ‘hostages’ gives the police an excuse for not doing something sooner. I do not think they were hostages in the traditional sense, but rather Omar was in the process of killing them.
That’s an excellent point. Btw, Mateen didn’t spend much time in the bathroom. He was in the main club for most of the episode. One guy in the bathroom was texting his mother. From the time he texted, “He’s in here with us,” to the time he was dead was very short. I.e.: the timing of the bathroom shoot up immediately follows that particular text.
‘[The son told his mother] he ran into a bathroom with other club patrons to hide and then wrote ‘he’s coming.’
‘The next text said: “He has us, and he’s in here with us,”’ Mina Justice said. ‘That was the last conversation.’’