ORLANDO, Fla. \u2013 The man charged in the deadly shooting in downtown Orlando during Halloween celebrations in 2024 acted in a premeditated manner, prosecutors argued Thursday in opening statements.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe went there to kill as many people as he possibly could,\u201d assistant state attorney Frank George told jurors in his opening statement, referring to defendant Jaylen Edgar, who sat just feet away.<\/p>\n
Edgar, 17, at the time of his arrest, is charged with two counts of first-degree murder and seven counts of attempted murder.<\/p>\n
[WATCH: Jury selected for the 2024 downtown Orlando Halloween murder trial]<\/p>\n
Tyrek Hill, 25, and Timothy Schmidt, Jr., 19, died in the shooting. <\/p>\n
Five of the seven people who survived their gunshot wounds testified for the state Thursday on the first day of testimony in Edgar\u2019s trial.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe pulls the firearm out of his waist,\u201d Anthony Berry recounted, testifying that he saw Edgar push past a crowd of people, pull a gun out, and start shooting. <\/p>\n
Berry was shot in the head.<\/p>\n
\u201cI don\u2019t even know if I was still alive at that point,\u201d Berry recalled thinking.<\/p>\n
Berry said the shooting has led to a \u201cmental permanent injury.\u201d<\/p>\n
Another gunshot victim who testified was Jonathan Valle, who was shot in his head and foot.<\/p>\n
\u201cI can\u2019t be in the sun too long,\u201d Valle testified, when asked about the lasting effects of his injuries. \u201cI have to lay down pretty slow. If not, I get vertigo and seizures.\u201d<\/p>\n
In the morning Thursday, police officers testified about their response to the shooting in the early morning hours of Nov. 1, 2024.<\/p>\n
[WATCH: Surveillance footage shows chaos of downtown Orlando mass shooting]<\/p>\n
Prosecutors had the officers describe surveillance video and body-worn camera footage that depicted the response to the shooting.<\/p>\n
The body camera footage captured the chaos in the immediate aftermath of the shooting. While partygoers dressed in Halloween costumes were frantically running for safety, officers are seen running toward the gunshots.<\/p>\n
Michael Hernandez \u2014 who is currently a police officer in Miami but was working as an OPD officer at the time \u2014 tackled and detained the gunman, whom he identified in the courtroom as Edgar.<\/p>\n
Hernandez testified that he had seen Edgar a couple of hours before the shooting, when he demanded that Edgar get down from an Orlando Fire Department vehicle.<\/p>\n
Prosecutors also showed surveillance video which depicted what prosecutors called the \u201cexecution of Tyrek Hill.\u201d The presentation of the video prompted gasps in the gallery, with a few people crying softly.<\/p>\n
Junior Barrett, Edgar\u2019s defense attorney, declined to deliver an opening statement Thursday.<\/p>\n
Barrett indicated earlier this week during jury selection that his client is still exploring the possibility of invoking a not guilty by reason of insanity defense.<\/p>\n
Edgar wrote a letter to Judge Keith Carsten last month, taking \u201cfull responsibility\u201d for the shooting but claiming that he was suffering from \u201cextreme mental or emotional disturbance\u201d at the time.<\/p>\n
The trial will resume Friday morning at 9 a.m.<\/p>\n
Copyright 2026 by WKMG ClickOrlando – All rights reserved.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ORLANDO, Fla. \u2013 The man charged in the deadly shooting in downtown Orlando during Halloween celebrations in 2024…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":377038,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[265,56049,1335,139,19478,141,140],"class_list":["post-377037","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-crime","tag-jaylen-edgar","tag-orange-county","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-halloween-mass-shooting","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377037","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=377037"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/377037\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/377038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=377037"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=377037"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=377037"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}