text: In the midst of the chaos early Sunday morning at Pulse nightclub, the team at News 13 in downtown Orlando was covering the story when a producer took an ominous phone call. 
   
   Overnight producer answered News 13 phone 
   
   Caller claimed to be Pulse nightclub shooter 
   
   Producer: 'I will never forget the words he said to me' 
   
   "News 13, this is Matt," is how Matthew Gentili, a producer at News 13, answered the phone. 
   
   Gentili knew something wasn't right. 
   
   "I was receiving phone calls from viewers saying, 'What's going on? What's happening? What's happening in Orlando?" Gentili recalled Tuesday. 
   
   Sharing with viewers the horror taking place just a few blocks down the street became Gentili's first priority — until a phone call made him pause. 
   
   "I will never forget the words he said to me," Gentili said. 
   
   About 45 minutes after the shooting began, the phone rang inside the News 13 newsroom. 
   
   "It was at 2:45 a.m. when I had just received the phone call of someone claiming to be the Orlando shooter," he said. "I answered the phone as I always do: 'News 13, this is Matt.' And on the other end, I heard, 'Do you know about the shooting?' " 
   
   Gentili said he was aware of the shooting. "Yes, I'm getting calls. I am hearing reports of a shooting," he replied to the caller, who then cut him off. 
   
   "I'm the shooter. It's me. I am the shooter," the person on the other end said. 
   
   Gentili said he didn't know what to say. The caller then started to say he committed the shooting for the Islamic State (militant group). 
   
   "He did it for ISIS, and he started speaking Arabic," Gentili said of the early morning phone call. "At the time, I didn't know what he was saying. He was speaking so fast. But it was ... he was speaking fluently. Whatever language he was speaking, he knew it. And he was speaking it very quickly. And that is when I said to him, 'Sir. Please. Speak in English, please.'" 
   
   Gentili said the caller stopped and said: "I did it for ISIS. I did it for the Islamic State." 
   
   Gentili said he asked where the caller was, but the caller said it was "none of my (expletive) business." 
   
   Sitting at his desk in the newsroom, Gentili said there was a long pause before he asked one final question. 
   
   "It was silent for a while. I asked him: 'Is there anything else you want to say?' " Gentili said. "He said no and hung up the phone." 
   
   Gentili sat and replayed in his head what had just happened. He heard nothing in the background. 
   
   After completing a 12-hour shift, Gentili was interviewed at home by the FBI. 
   
   Agents won't confirm whether Gentili spoke to the gunman, but News 13's managing editor was able to research the phone number from which the call came, and it matched to Omar Mateen. 
   
   "I'm definitely changed," Gentili said. "When you get a phone call like that, I'm never going to be able to answer the phone again without thinking this is the most serious call I'll ever get in my life." ||||| As the chaos was unfolding in an Orlando nightclub Sunday morning, Omar Mateen reportedly placed a separate phone call to a local news station to try and tell the world what he had done. 
   
   Matthew Gentili, a producer at News 13 in Orlando, was working the phones and receiving phone calls from people in the area asking about what had happened at Pulse Orlando, where 49 people – including the shooter – were massacred. 
   
   Gentili said he received one phone call, which he later described as “the most serious call I’ll ever get in my life.” 
   
   "It was at 2:45 a.m. when I had just received the phone call of someone claiming to be the Orlando shooter," he said in an interview with the station. "I answered the phone as I always do: 'News 13, this is Matt.' And on the other end, I heard, 'Do you know about the shooting?'" 
   
   Gentili started to explain that he was aware of the shooting before the caller interrupted him. 
   
   "I'm the shooter. It's me. I am the shooter," the person on the line said. 
   
   The caller began to tell him that he committed the atrocity at the nightclub and that he was doing it for the Islamic State. 
   
   "He did it for ISIS, and he started speaking Arabic," Gentili said. "At the time, I didn't know what he was saying. He was speaking so fast. But it was ... he was speaking fluently. Whatever language he was speaking, he knew it. And he was speaking it very quickly. And that is when I said to him, 'Sir. Please. Speak in English, please.'" 
   
   The call then said that he was committing the murders for the Islamic State. When Gentili asked where the person was he replied, “none of my (expletive) business.” 
   
   Gentili asked if he had any last words, and the caller said no and hung up the phone. 
   
   The FBI interviewed Gentili after his 12-hour shift. 
   
   The FBI didn’t confirm whether Gentili spoke with the shooter, but News 13 managed to research the number and it did match Mateen. 
   
   Click for more from News 13. ||||| The Pulse nightclub gunman called the News 13 newsroom as the shooting was happening: https://t.co/MkeFGpyomZ pic.twitter.com/QLabUDSsv1 — Andrew O'Brien (@aobrien7) June 15, 2016 
   
   As the deadliest mass shooting in American history unfolded in Orlando early Sunday morning, Matthew Gentili was staffing the phones less than two miles away. 
   
   As Omar Mateen terrorized Pulse, a popular gay club, the phones at News 13 began to ring. 
   
   Gentili, a producer at the television station — just a five-minute drive from Pulse on South Orange Avenue — spoke to one frightened Floridian after another. 
   
   “I was receiving phone calls from viewers saying, ‘What’s going on? What’s happening?'” Gentili told a reporter at his own station Tuesday. 
   
   When the phone rang once more at around 2:45 a.m., Gentili answered as he had all night: “News 13, this is Matt.” 
   
   But this call was different. 
   
   This call was chilling. 
   
   “Do you know about the shooting?” a man asked Gentili. 
   
   “Yes, I’m getting calls,” Gentili said. “I am hearing reports of a shooting. …” 
   
   The man cut him off. 
   
   “I’m the shooter. It’s me,” the man said. “I am the shooter.” 
   
   The caller then said he had carried out the Pulse attack for the Islamic State and began speaking quickly in a foreign language. 
   
   “At the time, I didn’t know what he was saying,” Gentili told News 13 reporter Scott Fais. “He was speaking so fast. But it was … he was speaking fluently. Whatever language he was speaking, he knew it. And he was speaking it very quickly. And that is when I said to him, ‘Sir. Please. Speak in English, please.'” 
   
   “I did it for ISIS,” the caller said, according to Gentili, “I did it for the Islamic State.” 
   
   When the TV producer asked the caller’s location, the man said it was “none of my [expletive] business,” Gentili said. 
   
   “It was silent for a while,” Gentili said. “I asked him: ‘Is there anything else you want to say?'” 
   
   The man said no and hung up. 
   
   After the call, Gentili quickly plunged back into producing news about the mass shooting, in which Mateen killed 49 people and injured 53 more, according to authorities. When he finally did get off work, he was interviewed by the FBI about the phone conversation. 
   
   The gunman who killed at least 49 people in a shooting rampage at an Orlando nightclub has been identified as 29-year-old Omar Mateen. Here is what we know about him so far. (Deirdra O'Regan/The Washington Post) 
   
   FBI agents would not confirm whether it was the gunman on the phone with the producer, but the TV station’s managing editor matched the incoming phone number to Mateen, according to News 13. 
   
   The timing and content of the phone call also appears to make sense. 
   
   After opening fire within the club at around 2 a.m. Sunday morning, Mateen then called 911 for the first time at 2:30 a.m. but quickly hung up without saying anything, FBI Director James Comey said at a briefing Monday. Mateen then called back, spoke briefly with the 911 dispatcher and hung up again. The dispatcher called back, and they had a second brief conversation. 
   
   “During the calls he said he was doing this for the leader of [the Islamic State] who he named and pledged loyalty to,” Comey said. He said the gunman also expressed solidarity with the perpetrators of the Boston Marathon bombing and with Moner Mohammad Abusalha, a Florida man who in 2014 became a suicide bomber in Syria. 
   
   The phone call to News 13 came shortly after that second 911 conversation ended. 
   
   Omar Mateen showed no signs of remorse in phone calls with police during an hours-long standoff at the Pulse nightclub, Orlando Police Chief John Mina said in an interview with The Washington Post on June 13. (Gillian Brockell,McKenna Ewen/The Washington Post) 
   
   Roughly two hours later, Orlando police, worried by Mateen’s comments about explosives, decided to stage a rescue of the remaining club-goers. Police used an armored vehicle to ram the nightclub. As terrified hostages escaped from the hole in the building, so, too, did Mateen. 
   
   He was armed with two guns and died in a hail of police gunfire. 
   
   Two days later, Gentili said he was still haunted by the phone call. 
   
   “I will never forget the words he said to me,” Gentili told News 13. 
   
   “I’m definitely changed,” he also said Tuesday. “When you get a phone call like that, I’m never going to be able to answer the phone again without thinking this is the most serious call I’ll ever get in my life.” 
   
   1 of 25 Full Screen Autoplay Close Skip Ad × What the investigation into the Orlando mass shooting looks like View Photos Officials are scouring the site and others in the area for information about the June 12 massacre. Caption Officials are scouring the site and others in the area for information about the June 12 massacre. June 15, 2016 Law enforcement officials gather outside Pulse nightclub in Orlando during the shooting investigation. David Goldman/AP Buy Photo Wait 1 second to continue. 
   
   Read more about the Orlando mass shooting: 
   
   ‘The guilt of being alive is heavy,’ survivor of nightclub shooting says 
   
   Orlando shooter’s wife facing intense scrutiny from the FBI 
   
   The lives lost in Orlando
target: – Orlando shooter Omar Mateen not only called police during the massacre at Pulse nightclub but also, apparently, a TV station. News 13 producer Matthew Gentili says he was handling the phones just 2 miles from the club around 2:45am Sunday as viewers called in to ask about the shooting when he received a call that changed him, per Fox News. The caller asked if Gentili knew about the shooting, then announced, "I'm the shooter. It's me," Gentili says. The caller began speaking fluent Arabic until Gentili asked him to speak in English. "I will never forget the words he said to me," says Gentili. He said, "I did it for ISIS. I did it for the Islamic State." The caller refused to tell Gentili where he was. When Gentili asked if the man had anything more to say, he said no and hung up. Gentili was interviewed by the FBI, which didn't confirm the call came from Mateen, but News 13 says the number matched the shooter's phone. The timing also makes sense, per the Washington Post. The first shots rang out around 2am. Authorities say Mateen called 911 around 2:30am and eventually had two short conversations with a dispatcher. The call to News 13 would have followed. "I'm never going to be able to answer the phone again without thinking this is the most serious call I'll ever get in my life," Gentili says.