DETROIT – Officials have named two Michigan men who were among the victims of a mass shooting at the Orlando nightclub Pulse.
One Michigan native who was killed at Pulse nightclub early Sunday was Christopher Andrew Leinonen, 32, who goes by Drew. He moved with his mother from metro Detroit to Florida.
Leinonen’s last moments were spent with his partner inside Pulse, the gay nightclub gunman Omar Mateen attacked.
While his mother frantically waited outside the club for word on her son, his father, Mark Bando, was in Farmington Hills watching the horror unfold on the TV.
Bando, who spent 25 years as a Detroit police officer, said it still doesn’t seem real.
“I’ll tell you about my son," Bando said. "He was always a people lover, unlike me. I always saw the worst of people for 25 years as a Detroit cop.”
Bando said his son used to tease him about carrying his service revolver off duty, telling him he was paranoid.
“I’d tell him, 'There’s evil in the world out there, son,' and he didn’t want to believe it.'”
Leinonen and his mother moved to Florida before he started high school.
“If he had lived near me up here, I would have taught him how to handle guns and he would have had a CPL. If someone in that place had a pistol, they should have put a stop to it and saved a lot of lives,” Bando said.
The second Michigan man officials identified was Tevin Eugene Crosby, 25.
He was a businessman from Michigan who recently went to Orlando. He grew up in North Carolina and at some point moved to Saginaw to start his business.
How you can help:
Equality Florida has a GoFundMe account set up accepting donations for victims' families.
There is a Pule Orlando Relief Fund set up through CrowdRise.
The Pet Alliance of Orlando also is looking for volunteers to help take care of pets of those who were killed.
In the Detroit area, support can be shown by attending a vigil. Two events are planned for Tuesday -- one at Affirmations in Ferndale and another at the LGBT center in Detroit.
More: Metro Detroit prays for Orlando shooting victims
The list of victims is being updated on the city of Orlando's website here.
Bodies removed after worst mass shooting in US history
Dozens of bodies were slowly removed overnight from a popular Orlando gay club after a gunman sprayed the helpless crowd with bullets in violence that killed 49 people and devastated a city famous for family-friendly theme parks.
The gunman was also killed.
When the attacker opened fire in the early hours of Sunday morning, it interrupted an evening of drinking, dancing and drag shows at a club known for tolerance for all people.
Authorities say suspect Omar Mateen emerged, carrying an AR-15 and fired relentlessly -- 20 rounds, 40, then 50 and more. In such tight quarters, the bullets could hardly miss. He shot at police. He took hostages.
When the gunfire at the Pulse Orlando club finally stopped, 50 people were dead and dozens critically wounded in the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history. Mateen, who authorities said had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in a 911 call around the time of the attack, died in a gun battle with SWAT team members.
Authorities are wondering if it was an act of terrorism and are probing the background of Mateen, a 29-year-old American citizen from Fort Pierce, Florida, who had worked as a security guard. The gunman's father recalled that his son recently got angry when he saw two men kissing in Miami and said that might be related to the assault.
The Islamic State's radio called Mateen "one of the soldiers of the caliphate in America." Al-Bayan Radio, a media outlet for the Islamic State extremist group, on Monday hailed the attack, saying it targeted a gathering of Christians and gays and that it's the worst attack on U.S. soil since the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. The broadcast is apparently an opportunistic statement as IS has not officially claimed responsibility for the Orlando attack.
Thirty-nine of the dead were killed at the club, and 11 people died at hospitals, Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer said.
Sunday night, workers were removing bodies four at a time on stretchers out of the club and loaded them into white vans. The action was repeated over and over. The covered bodies were taken to the County Medical Examiner's office.
At least 53 people were hospitalized, most in critical condition, and a surgeon at Orlando Regional Medical Center said the death toll was likely to climb.
The previous deadliest mass shooting in the U.S. was the 2007 attack at Virginia Tech, where a student killed 32 people before killing himself.
Hundreds were inside Pulse when gunfire erupted
The Orlando shooting started about 2 a.m., with more than 300 people inside the Pulse.
"He had an automatic rifle, so nobody stood a chance," said Jackie Smith, who saw two friends next to her get shot. "I just tried to get out of there."
At 2:09 a.m., Pulse posted on its Facebook page: "Everyone get out of Pulse and keep running."
Mateen exchanged gunfire with 14 police officers at the club, and took hostages at one point. In addition to the assault rifle, the shooter also had a handgun and some sort of "suspicious device," Police Chief John Mina. About 5 a.m., authorities sent in a SWAT team to rescue the remaining club-goers, Mina said.
At first, officers mistakenly thought the gunman had strapped explosives to the dead after a bomb robot sent back images of a battery part next to a body, Mayor Dyer said. The robot was sent in after SWAT team members put explosive charges on a wall and an armored vehicle knocked it down in an effort to rescue hostages.
Just before 6 a.m., the Pulse posted an update on its Facebook: "As soon as we have any information, we will update everyone. Please keep everyone in your prayers as we work through this tragic event. Thank you for your thoughts and love."
Authorities were looking into whether the shooter acted alone, according to Danny Banks, an agent with the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
"This is an incident, as I see it, that we certainly classify as domestic terror incident," Orange County Sheriff Jerry Demings said.
Mateen's father, Mir Seddique, told NBC News about his son seeing the men kissing a couple of months ago.
"We are saying we are apologizing for the whole incident," Seddique said. "We are in shock like the whole country."
Mateen was a security guard with a company called G4S. In a 2012 newsletter, the firm identified him as working in West Palm Beach. In a statement sent Sunday to the Palm Beach Post, the company confirmed that he had been an employee since September 2007. State records show that Mateen had held a firearms license since at least 2011.
President Barack Obama called the shooting an "act of terror" and an "act of hate" targeting a place of "solidarity and empowerment" for gays and lesbians. He urged Americans to decide whether this is the kind of "country we want to be."