Mina Justice was awakened out of a deep sleep by an incoming text message at 2 a.m. Sunday.
The caller ID showed the text was from her son Eddie Jamoldroy Justice, a 30-year-old accountant who lived in a luxury high rise in downtown Orlando.
“Mommy I love you,” read the first text at 2:06 a.m. “in club they shooting,” came the second text.
Alarmed but still half asleep, Mina Justice tried calling her son’s phone. But there was no answer.
“U ok,” she texted him.
At 2:07 a.m., he replied: “Trapp in bathroom.”
Wide awake now, Mina was worried. She knew her son was gay and that he frequented gay bars.
She text back, “what club.”
“Pulse… downtown. Call police mommy,” Eddie text her.
Alarmed, Justice called 911.
“I’m calling them now”
“U still in there”
“Answer [your] damn phone”
“Call them”
“Call me.”
The Orlando 911 switchboard was flooded with calls about the mass shooting at Pulse nightclub on South Orange Avenue.
The operator told Mina Justice that police were already on the scene. She told her to stay on the line.
The gunman, Omar Mateen, 29, was confronted outside the club by a uniformed officer working private duty at the club. 2 more officers pulled up.
Mateen and the officers exchanged gunfire outside the club, the onslaught of bullets drove Mateen back inside the club..
The mass shooting quickly became a hostage situation. Eddie Justice’s fate was sealed.
Mateen called 911 to pledge his allegiance to the radical extremist group ISIS. He invoked the names of the Boston Marathon bombers.
Precious minutes ticked by as Mina repeatedly called Eddie’s phone.
Finally, at 2:39 a.m., a flurry of panicked texts from Eddie.
“Call them mommy”
“Now”
“I’m tell I’m bathroom”
“He’s coming”
“I’m gonna die”
Justice assured Eddie the police were there. She relayed messages to him from 911 dispatch.
“They said stay [there]. Is anybody hurt.”
“Lots. Yes,” he text back at 2:42 a.m.
She asked him which bathroom he was in.
He told her the women’s.
She asked him if he was with the police, but he didn’t respond.
Text me please,” Justice wrote.
“No,” he wrote four minutes later. “Still here in bathroom. He has us. They need to come get us.”
“Hurry,” Eddie wrote. “He’s in the bathroom with us.”
She asked, “Is the man in the bathroom wit u?”.
According to witnesses, Mateen asked the hostages for their race and religion.
At 2:50 a.m., Eddie sent a chilling text: “He’s a [terrorist].”
Then one final text from Eddie: “Yes.”
At 5:00 a.m. 11 members of an elite tactical S.W.A.T. team drove an armored vehicle through a cement block wall and into the club.
Mateen fired on them. They returned fire, killing him instantly. 30 hostages were rescued from the club’s bathrooms.
Just before dawn, Mina Justice stood vigil with other families outside Orlando Regional Medical Center.
44 wounded victims had been transported to the hospital from the club during the night.
Justice prayed that Eddie was among them.
A Fox News affiliate cameraman and reporter approached her for a comment.
Justice told them about her son Eddie, whom she affectionately called Droy.
She said he had been trapped in the women’s restroom during the mass shooting.
She told them about the text messages he sent her from the club, and that he was still missing.
She was exhausted, but she continued standing vigil outside the hospital.
As long as her son was still missing, she had hope.
