Skip to main content
Saturday, November 14, 2026Nov 14
Subscribe
All Sections
Search
More

Chattanooga reacts to the Orlando massacre on social media

Staff Photo by Dan Henry / The Chattanooga Times Free Press- 6/12/16. Jenishea Lewis becomes emotional during a prayer vigil held with permission from the Islamic Society of Greater Chattanooga on Sunday, June 12, 2016. The vigil was in response to a mass shooting by an American-born man who pledged allegiance to ISIS killing 50 people early Sunday at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida.
Staff Photo by Dan Henry / The Chattanooga Times Free Press- 6/12/16. Jenishea Lewis becomes emotional during a prayer vigil held with permission from the Islamic Society of Greater Chattanooga on Sunday, June 12, 2016. The vigil was in response to a mass shooting by an American-born man who pledged allegiance to ISIS killing 50 people early Sunday at a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida.

By Shami Mosley 3 min read

photo Several hundred supporters, led by Laura Kanter, at right, marched to Sasscer Park after a vigil at Calle Cuatro Plaza in support of the Orlando shooting victims Sunday, June 12, 2016, in Santa Ana, Calif. (Kevin Sullivan/The Orange County Register via AP)

As police notified the next-of-kin following the worst mass shooting in American history, Twitter users in Chattanooga struggled to come to grips with the murderous rampage.

Early Sunday morning, Omar Mateen slaughtered 49 attendees of a gay nightclub in Orlando, Florida and injured several more individuals before he himself was shot and killed.

The killings come nearly one year after a deadly lone-wolf attack on two Chattanooga military installations.