Who is Jaylen Dwayne Edgar? Video shows Orlando mass shooting suspect

The Orlando Police Department has arrested 17-year-old Jaylen Dwayne Edgar as the suspected shooter at a Halloween celebration that killed two people and injured six others.

Police released security footage and body camera footage of the terrifying scene showing Edgar walking through a crowd in downtown Orlando in the area of ​​Orange Avenue and Central Boulevard around 1 a.m. Friday morning.

“Within minutes, another shooting was attended by officers south of Washington Street on Orange Avenue,” Orlando police said in a news release.

Dressed in a yellow T-shirt and jeans and carrying a backpack, Edgar is seen in the video suddenly returning to the crowd and firing a gun. Audience members, some in costume and some in street clothes, quickly dispersed.

Edgar appears to fall to the ground and get back up before being confronted by a police officer who knocks the gun out of his hand and tackles him back down.

Two victims died at the scene. The remaining six victims were taken to Orlando Regional Medical Center in stable condition, police said. Their ages range from 19 to 39 years. Their identities have not been released yet.

Orlando Police Chief Eric Smith said in a press conference that 50,000 to 100,000 people could have been downtown celebrating Halloween at the time of the shooting.

Smith said they did not see Edgar enter any of the clubs when he arrived in downtown Orlando.

Nearly 100 officers were patrolling Downtown at the time of the shooting.

“No matter what his mindset was, he was going to shoot no matter what,” Smith said at the news conference. “He passed several officers. We followed where he came from. He passed at least 10 officers.

Although a motive for the shooting is pending investigation, Smith added, “It’s unfortunate that some people see someone they don’t like, someone they have some kind of beef with, and they take whatever they want to do.”

Smith also stated that Edgar was previously arrested for grand theft in 2023. It is unknown at this time if he will be charged as an adult for the shooting.

Newsweek has reached out to Orlando police for further comment.

Smith noted at the press conference that it has been two years since the last mass shooting in the city.

On February 22, 2023, Spectrum News 13 reporter Dylan Colby Lyons, 24, was fatally shot while reporting from the scene of a homicide in a Pine Hills neighborhood.

Keith Melvin Moses, the 19th suspect in the prior shooting, returned to the scene and shot Lyons and Spectrum News photographer Jesse Walden, then went to a nearby home and shot Brandi Major and her 9-year-old daughter, T’Yonna Major.

The city was also where the second worst mass shooting in US history took place.

On June 12, 2016, 29-year-old Omar Mateen, 29, shot and killed 49 people and wounded 53 more in a mass shooting at the Pulse nightclub, a gay bar, in Orlando. Police fatally shot him after a three-hour standoff.

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