Pulse: First Responder

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Yesterday I saw an article in Watermark that Barbara Poma and her husband Rosario were cleared of any wrong doing in relation to the Pulse Nightclub shooting that resulted in 49 deaths.

The shooting happened June 12, 2016 and the wounds are still raw.

This sketch was done in the office of Pam Schwartz, then the director of the Orange County History Museum. She conducted an interview with Mathew Hairs who was a first responder at Pulse after the shooting. I loved that Mathew’s pup was so attentive. Maybe an hour into the oral history the pup curled up on the floor.

After Pulse: Lindsay Kincaide

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Lindsay Kincaide is an Orlando Florida mental health clinician and an HIV, LGBT advocate. She volunteered at the Center on Tuesday nights and the volunteers  became known as Team Tuesday. After work they would go to Karaoke night at Pulse.

She loved Pulse. A friend dealt poker at Pulse. Barbara Poma had named the club after her brother who passed away from aids, and she was always open to local agencies coming into the club to do fundraisers.

She started with front desk work at the Center but wanted to get involved as an HIV tester. She did the work to become a certified HIV tester in the state of Florida. She as also a case manager for low income people living with HIV, Aids. She was promoted to become the Center’s HIV program director. She built the program up adding Hep-C and STI testing and she expanded mental health services.

She vividly recalls June 11, the day before the Pulse tragedy. She was running a support group for partners of individuals how have come out as trans-gender. She was running that support group on Saturday mornings. It was a beautiful day. She felt great and went shopping at Publix for the weekend. The plan was to have mimosas on Sunday. She and her partner went to bed early that night, about 10pm. She considered the idea of going out, maybe to Southern Nights, but she was tired.

She woke up the next morning to the text messages, “Are you OK?” “Did you go to Pulse?” A text message at 2Am read, “Are you at Pulse?” from a friend. She assumed her friend wanted her to meet at Pulse. Then she got a text from a best friend in Atlanta. Then she sought out the news at about 8AM on social media. What the hell is going on? She jumped out of bed and woke her partner up, “There has been a shooting at Pulse.” She realized she had to go to the Center. That was her first instinct. Her partner was nervous, “What if they decide to go to the center and begin shooting?” At that point Lindsay didn’t care. She needed to be there. They both went.

They got coffee and immediately drove to the Center and they were some of the first to arrive. No one was prepared for this. The Center started putting information online via Facebook. People started to arrive. Water, Klenex, toilet paper, paper towels, coffee and food poured into the Center. They moved the TV to the front room so that the news could come in.

About mid-morning about 12 councilors went into the back and stated to figure out how to mobilize. They needed to be in the community. A clipboard was passed around but that wasn’t going to work. Someone suggested Google Docs to get organized. A spreadsheet was created. Lindsay began to sign people up, getting their contact information. The Zebra Coalition right across the street donated their crisis hotline. People were sent to the hotel across the street from ORMC where the families were hoping to hear news about their loved ones. They also needed an off site location. The Center was getting insanely crowded. That off site location became Christ’s Church on Robinson.

The Google Doc which she ran had contact information and then tabs for the different sites and different shifts. For the first day, Sunday, She tried to schedule people. It was too much for her to handle alone. She was there until 11Pm on Sunday. She decided to just put the spreadsheet out into the world, and let people sign up virtually. She added new tabs as needed. The document was editable. It went out on all the Facebook pages that counselors are a part of. Her phone blew up with call from all over the country. She was texting, e-mailing and calling out information to everyone to sign in on the Google Doc. She was up until 2AM. Over 700 people signed up. There were about 1000 interactions between June 12 and July 4th.

By Monday they were going to the LGBT clubs, Parliament House, Southern Nights, Savoy, Stonewall, because that is where the community gathers when they need support. That is our safe space. Councilors were at the clubs until midnight. The mental health community wrapped their arm around the LGBT community and said, we are here. They provided support and connected people to counseling. Two Spirit began offering services for free and the Center got their counseling mobilized. Another Google Doc was created where she asked all who had signed up, what they were willing to offer the community. That document went to what became the United Orlando Assistance Center and to the Center as a counseling resource guide.

 

After Pulse: Jennifer Foster

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Jennifer Foster is the owner of a company called Foster Productions which creates digital content. She is involved with the One Orlando Alliance. She had been active in the LGBTQ community since he moved to Orlando in 2001.

She started an Human Rights Campaign (HRC) in Orlando in 2004. She was on the local board for 10 years and on the national board for 8 years. It was a full time volunteer job. Once a month community members would meet at Pulse. Any time they needed to have an event they would ask Barbara Poma if they could have it at Pulse. There was room for socializing in one room, conversation in another and someone on a microphone in another. They always said yes. HRC Connect was a monthly LGBT community event. It got bigger an bigger.

Jennifer’s phone woke her up at about 4:30AM On June 12, 2016. She heard it vibrating. She started reading her text messages. A friend was asking if is she was OK. He had also left a voice mail in which he was sobbing. He needed to be sure she and her partner were not at Pulse. At 5AM she was still scrolling through messages and realized they needed to turn on the TV. Something was wrong. They sat in the living room trying to make sense of everything. It felt like a personal attack on her life, on her marriage, on the LGBT community, everything she had been fighting for. It was obvious that this was targeted at Pulse. It was Latin Night. What friends might have been there? She started texting and calling to check to be sure people were OK. Nothing made sense.

She called her tight knit group of friends that morning. Blood was needed so they went to One Blood on Michigan. They stood in line with thousands of other people. Cases of water were unloaded, they were given bananas and cookies, and sun block. She took pictures with her phone of the humanity, the beautiful outpouring our community, the response. There were brown people, and white people and gay people and straight people and old people and young people it was our community. This happened to all of us. The cities and the community’s response bears this out. They could not donate blood. They were sent home.

Back at home they drank wine and cried and ranted. They couldn’t stop watching the news. She realized that the community wasn’t ready for something like this. She called a community leader and they met the next day putting together lists of organizations and figuring out who ran what, and who knew, who and how everybody was working together, and what they were doing. That list didn’t exist. Everyone was out there doing their own thing. They started calling people and asking what they needed. Vigils were being planned and every organization called the mayor but all these organizations began overtaxing City Hall with all their separate  requests and demands. They were trying to create a funnel for information so the city could make an announcement once. Everyone’s fears and misconceptions were addressed. They got all the organizations in a room so they could ask questions. That was the first meeting of what is now the One Orlando Alliance on the Thursday after, the 16th of June. People met to communicate, collaborate. and help solve problems, to share information. to avoid duplication of things that were happening. It was a way to manage the chaos.

There were 18 organizations to start. 33 people showed up. People were there from the City, the County, the FBI, the Department of Justice, Seminole County Emergency Response Team, a team from Edelman. The goal was to create an equal hierarchy. At that meeting they were able to connect leaders with each other. By the end they all decided they have to work together. There was pre-Pulse but this was a post Pulse world. They set up a closed Facebook group to stay connected. All this was to happen behind the scenes. They were a coalition of community leaders. The strength and resolve created that day continues.

 

Commissioner Patty Sheehan

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This post discusses the shooting that took place at the Pulse
Nightclub on June 12, 2016. It contains difficult content, so please do
not read on if you feel you may be effected. 

This article and sketch have been posted with the express written
permission of the interviewee. Analog Artist Digital World takes the
privacy and wishes of individuals very seriously. 

Orlando Commissioner Patty Sheehan has just won her bid for re-election when her opponent dropped out of the race. I know her as a strong supporter of the Orlando arts scene and that was exemplified by the art decorating her office in City Hall. It was encouraging to see art by local artists that I admire, and of course Patty is also an artist.

In 2016 she also had just been re-elected and sworn in. She was working on an initiative using left over campaign funds to cut back on graffiti, there was a duplex ordinance in the works, and she was battling puppy mills. Then Pulse happened and everything shifted. When something that horrific happens there is so much to do. Someone can make less than a $700 investment and do millions of dollars in damage in minutes. No one should have that kind of power, but Orlando had to deal with the aftermath. There are so many things that you can never ever prepare for. No other city or any other community, should have to go through this. It was horrific.

Pulse was formerly an Italian restaurant. It was such a pretty club. Ron Legler, was Barbara Poma‘s partner at the time it opened. Ron loved theater, one room was like the Moulan Rouge, it had a huge chandelier, a dance floor, it was beautiful. Then there was a darker bar in the back, then you had this white room. There were planters and LEDs would change the entire color of the room, it was so cool. It was so theatrical and amazing. They remodeled it a couple of times since then. Barbara’s brother had died of AIDS and that fueled Barbara’s passion and why it was called Pulse. It is unfair that something so awful happened to someone who is so good. She had to deal with much of the anger from families.

On June 11, 2016 Patty remembered going for a walk, painting, it was a typical day, but Sunday morning June 12 will stand out for as long as she lives. Her phone was off and she got up around 7:30am to 8am that morning. She went to check her phone and she thought, “Damn, my phone is blowing up.” Everybody was calling. Just then the phone rang, the house phone. It was Frank Billingsley the chief of staff. He said, “Are you sitting down?” He said “I don’t know how to tell you this but 21 people have been shot at Pulse Nightclub.” She relied, “No, no no, please tell me it is not the largest mass shooting. I’ll be right down.” She called Eddie, her police liaison. Eddie used to work off duty at Pulse. He had just stopped since he had other commitments on Sundays. Eddie picked her up. The car pulled right up to Kaley and Orange Avenue by Einstein Beagles. This was about 8:30am.

All the officers faces were ashen. It was very raw. She looked over and saw two people wrapped in tarps. Eddie didn’t want her to see that. She looked down and saw the blood. There were places where people had fallen, and you could  tell they were dragged across the street. There were bullet casings and and she thought “Oh my God, this is Orange Avenue.”  She looked down, and realized she was standing in blood. There was blood everywhere. She walked over near the club and saw Jim Young. He had been her police liaison for a few years, so they were close. She asked, “Where is Barbara?” he said,  “We don’t know yet.” She thought, “No, no, no.” She thought Barbara the club owner was inside.

Mayor Buddy Dyer and several other commissioners went into a command center for an update. It was an air conditioned tent. They said 21 people had died at the time. They were really matter of fact about it and she was devastated. They didn’t understand what she was going through. Thank god Eddie was there. She walked back out with Eddie and Jim, they were her safe emotional space. The governor was there and she just didn’t want to deal with him. He had never been supportive of the LGBTQ community. Terry DeCarlo got there. She just hugged him. Pastor Kevin Cobaris came over and asked if he could prey with them. A picture of that moment went everywhere. Joe Burbank took that picture.

Later at a press conference they said 50 had died including the gunman in the count.  There was a hush. Media are usually always talking but everybody gasped. Media are usually don’t react they are trying to be professional, but she remembered that audible gasp. Everybody was shocked. The  number was unbelievable. She just hugged Terry. So multiple politicians got up to speak and she thought , “No one had said the word, Gay, they didn’t say Latino.” So she got up there and said, “We are a gay lesbian, bisexual, transgender community and we are united. If you think you are going to destroy us you are not because we are a strong, resilient, decent, loving people. This is who we are.” She was mad because she didn’t want them to be erased.

Patty’s phone blew up after her remarks. Everyone wanted to talk to her and a PR person stepped in to handle the deluge. She was told, “You need to be the voice of this, because others will take advantage and you are going to say the right things to help your community even if they are not.” This became her roll. She started doing interviews. She was concerned about Barbara and found out that she had been in Mexico and she was coming back. Thank god she was not inside. But then she thought, she will be devastated that she wasn’t there.

She remembered seeing Christine Leinonenwho kept asking, Where is my son?” Patty could only relate “I didn’t know, and that I’m sorry. It was so hot, and people were sitting on the sidewalks crying. They had nowhere to go. They were taken to the hotel but there was too much of a scene. People
were just looking for their kids. That was so heartbreaking and there was no information yet. Finally they opened up the Beardall Center so they had somewhere to go, looking for some answer.

Then she would get shocked back into anger since CNN wanted to do an interview with Pam Bondi and Patty together. So Pam walked right up to her and said, “You know Patty we have to do something to help the LGBTQ community.” Patty responded “I look forward to the change.” She needed to  be diplomatic since State benefits were on the line and the families were going to need the funeral benefits. Patty was already set with a mic. She thought, “I can’t do this.” A producer walked up and asked if she was OK with doing the interview and she said no. The FBI brought resources, the State people brought resources, they were helping. As much some politicians did not help, Senator Bill Nelson was getting families visas and all the things that were needed. Not all families were here they had to come from other places.

Patty met Christopher Hanson on the street. She had seen him on the news. She told him he needed to go to the Center, to get help, there were counselors there. There was another young man, he came up to her between media interviews and said, “My friend is in my apartment and he has been shot. He is undocumented.” She grabbed him by the arm and said, “You have to promise me, Immigration is not going to come, ICE is not going to come, promise me you will take your friend to the hospital.” Stuff like that was heart breaking. Patty went from media tent to media tent. Her goal was to talk about the LGBTQ community, The Latin American community, the people of color who were impacted. She wanted to talk about victims and to get blood to the blood banks, and to raise money to help. Equality Florida had a Go Fund Me already in place. She wanted to be sure people gave to a trusted source. There were many scams afterwards.

She had been on the street from 8:30 in the morning until 11:30 that night. She stayed the next day all day as well. It was so hot. Her feet were burnt from the soles of her shoes. It was a frenzy. She finally got back to her office later that week. She expected a pile of complaints about the streets being closed, hundreds of people were being inconvenienced. There was only one complaint from a guy that hadn’t bothered to renew his drivers license. Everyone else was offering help. There were people on the street with food. All these restaurants that were loosing business brought out food to all the people at the scene. Ace hardware was was cooking hot dogs for everybody on their grills. They were closed they lost thousands of dollars in business. The church put out drinks for everybody. We recharged our phones at the church and they put pastries and food out for everyone. Everyone was so kind. If there is a message to this, it is that love wins, that we all came together. You can never just turn the lights off, that says that darkness wins. You want to be a light to the world you want to show love. That is what Orlando did.

Equality Florida wanted to have the vigil right away. The city tried to discourage them for as long as they could, and they had the vigil that following Monday. Patty wasn’t even planning to go. She was honestly mad at them because they still had officers on the street. There were so many resources that were needed elsewhere. She decided to go just to find Eddie because there were just no cops. Should something happen she wanted to be there with Eddie to help protect people. She wasn’t planning to go on stage but when she walked up, people were clapping and she was overwhelmed. She didn’t feel worthy of the applause, because they had died. People told her she did a good job but it wasn’t about her getting attention, it was about the 49 it was the worst moment of her life. She doesn’t remember what she said. Everything said those first 4 or 5 days was all off the cuff. She wanted to tell the story of Orlando, many people have this idea of Orlando being the theme parks, but we have a downtown. As mad as she was at Equality Florida it was a beautiful thing that happened. She remembered the bells ringing 49 times. She approached a news cameraman and asked how long it took to ring the bells 49 times. It took eight and half minutes. An eternity.

Patty lost half her friends to AIDS between the age of 25 and 30. she
dealt with some horrific things in her life, but it prepared her so she
could be on that street to try and help those families.  Don Price put aside 49 cemetery plots at Greenwood Cemetery in case they were needed. There was a family with a divorce, and the dad took all the money and he buried his son in a paupers cemetery. So they are trying to get him back to Orlando but he has to be cremated and they are Catholic, there are all these issues.  It is still going on. It was great of the hospital to forgive the bills. But there is continuing care. The money raised by the one fund was enough to bury victims but it wasn’t enough to help the most horrifically wounded victims. There are about ten of them that have injuries that are going to cost hundreds of thousands of dollars.

Patty has become friends with a lot of the survivors. They are amazing, beautiful, loving, and forgiving people. They
did not deserve what happened to them. Many people have moved on. One
survivor went to work and sat down and the incision in his stomach
opened up. He doesn’t get to move on. We are still healing from Pulse. We
are probably never going to be the same.

Removing the Pulse banner

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The City of Orlando had local artists submit work for a banner that went on the fence surrounding the Pulse Nightclub after the shooting. A black fabric had covered the fence and people cut holes in that fabric to get a glimpse of the bullet holes in the walls of the club. The new colorful banner was covered in memorial items and signatures from visitors from around the world by the time it was taken down. I went to the site with the staff of the Orange County Regional History Center and helped clean up the dead flowers and wax while they collected items to preserve in the museums collection.

AS they started to roll up the banner, removing it from the fence I went to the furthest spot to sketch it before it was cone. Channel 9 News had showed up to get footage for their broadcast as well. They seemed curious about what I was doing and I answered a few questions as I continued to sketch. The History museum staff had come in their van and a U-Haul to handle the collections process. The club owner Barbara Poma was also there to answer any questions. The reason the banner was being removed and large items taken away was because an interim memorial with landscaping had been designed for the site. In the following weeks construction would begin on that interim memorial.

The City of Orlando offered to buy the Pulse nightclub for $2.5 million but Barbara decided to keep the property and formed the onePULSE Foundation to create a permanent memorial and museum on the site. $10 million was awarded to onePULSE to break ground on the project. The funds were afforded through hotel-tax revenues by the Orange
County Board of County Commissioners. The
funding, which was unanimously approved by the BCC’s members, will be
used to acquire land and create designs for a proposed museum.

Design firms are being vetted and a site chosen for the proposed museum. Six big name design firms were short listed for the design of the memorial and museum. The teams where found after a two-month search that brought in 68 submissions from 19 different countries. No actual Pulse designs were submitted. The firms were chosen based on past projects.

The finalists are:

Coldefy and Associés with RDAI, Xavier Veilhan, dUCKS scéno, Agence TER, and Professor Laila Farah;

Diller Scofidio + Renfro and Rene Gonzalez Architect with Raymond Jungles, Inc.;

heneghan peng architects, Gustafson Porter + Bowman, Sven Anderson, and Pentagram;

MASS Design Group, Ralph Appelbaum Associates, Sasaki, Sanford Biggers, Richard Blanco, and Porsha Olayiwola;

MVRDV, Grant Associates, GSM Project, and Studio Drift;

Studio Libeskind with Claude Cormier + Associés, Thinc, and Jenny Holzer

According to the onePULSE Foundation,
these teams provided the strongest credentials, relevant experience, and
most compelling statements on how architecture can embody the
organization’s mandate: “We will not let hate win.”

The six firms are working on designs right now and their work will be on display at the Orange County Regional History Center in October 2019. The public will be invited to see their work. At that time the final judging will occur to pick the final design.

Ben Johansen: The Ribbon Maker

Posted on by Thor

This post is about the shooting that took place at the Pulse
Nightclub on June 12, 2016. It contains difficult content, so please do
not read on if you feel you may be effected. 

This article and sketch have been posted with the express written
permission of the interviewee. Analog Artist Digital World takes the
privacy and wishes of individuals very seriously. 

Ben Johansen moved to Orlando in 2006. He was 34 years old. The city has grown a lot since then. There was a shop in town called Century Costumes. Ben had lost his long time job in an insurance company and he was a regular customer at Century. The business was up for sale. Ben got a call asking if her would buy the business. If he didn’t buy it, then the shop would close down completely. He talked it over with his husband Tim Vargas and they ended up buying it. Embelish FX has been open for 5 years now and it has been steadily growing. Ben loves the place. No day is ever the same.

He and Tim went to Pulse on many occasions for events and fundraisers. They were very involved with Pulse since Tim was the president of the board of directors. Ben has known Barbara Poma the owner of Pulse for years. The day before the shooting he was at a Make Up Show at the Convention Center. Life was good.

Tim doesn’t sleep very well. He is always awake at 4AM. On the early morning of June 12, 2016 Tim had turned on the TV in the living room. He went into the bedroom and turned it on there as well. He shook Ben and said, “You’ve got to get up.” Ben isn’t a morning person, he was very groggy getting up, the dog licked his face. Tim was very animated, he said, “Open your eyes and look at the TV.” All that was visible was the red glow from the TV, and the breaking news banner at the bottom of the screen. In his fog, Ben asked “What is going on?” Tim responded, “There has been a really bad shooting.” He started to cry. Ben got up and asked “What happened?” “There was a shooting at Pulse, there are many dead.” Tim said. Thoughts flew to friends. Tim urged Ben, “Take a quick shower we have to get to The Center.”

Tim drove. On the way to the Center it was still dark. Ben looked at his Facebook feed as he sat in the passenger seat. He was trying to figure out what happened. He couldn’t read the small screen through his tears. At the Center they met Terry DeCarlo who was the executive director at the time. People came with crates and crates of water and food. Volunteers kept showing up. The Center became the drop off point. They sent water to Camping World Stadium and the long lines at blood banks so that people didn’t dehydrate. That was the one thing about that week, it was so hot, like being on the surface of the sun. There was nothing anyone could do about it, but just keep on going. That week was a blur.

Ben explained, “The first day, I was lost. I didn’t know what to do, but I needed to do something.” He called his dad who was a police officer who loves everybody but doesn’t like to show it. Ben called just to say he was alive, that he hadn’t been in the club. That call is where the idea of the black swatch came from. As a child he remembered seeing his dad with a black swatch across his badge any time an officer passed. Ben called it the respect bar.

He found himself at Michael’s craft store to clear his head and wandered towards in the ribbon section where thee were rolls of rainbow ribbon. He brought a rainbow ribbon roll, a black ribbon roll and a box of pins. He had about enough supplies for  30 ribbons. At the Center he set himself up a small station to work with a laptop computer so he could keep watching the news. There were so many people, and he just didn’t want to get in the way. He started making ribbons. He pricked his fingers so many times that they were bleeding, but he didn’t care. He would give one to each volunteer pinning it over their heart and giving them a hug. As people dropped things off at the Center they noticed the ribbons and started asking for them. Ben had a small stash. When friends came to visit and hug him he would give them one.

He realized he was going to run out so he headed back to Michael’s. They only had two more rolls of rainbow ribbon left, so he had to put out an APB on social media. “Please bring rainbow ribbon.” People showed up with bags and bags of rainbow ribbon rolls, black ribbon and pins. Volunteers kept offering to help but Ben wanted to do it alone, he needed to do something. It helped alleviate the sense of loss and uselessness. But so many people wanted ribbons that eventually he needed to let people help. Now everyone helps. They started with one ribbon and the other day they hit the 700,000 mark. Rainbow ribbons are bought in 100 yard rolls. That is how he can keep track of how many are made. Soon Ben hopes to have met the 1 million ribbon mark.

A friend helped Ben set up a website where ribbon orders could be placed. Orders started coming from all over the world. Ben had put $7000 of his own money into ribbon supplies. The supplies and postage were wiping him out. A Go Fund Me Page was started which raised about $15,000 which helped with supplies. Orders range from 1 ribbon to 8,000. Every order was fulfilled. Celebrities like Miley Cyrus, George Takai, Alan Cumming, and Hillary Clinton have worn the ribbons. He would still love to get one to Michelle Obama someday.

The rainbow ribbons have become a symbol around the world for love
and hope. This small gesture wasn’t intended to get so big but Ben is
glad it did. Every ribbon is a conversation starter. If he is wearing
one and is outside Florida someone will ask, “What is that for?” He
tells them the story and gives them a ribbon. He has a rainbow ribbon
tattooed on his arm. He can always see it and it brings life back into
focus.

Ben knew 12 people who died at Pulse that night. You never expect this to happen in your own back yard. It was a wake up call to Orlando. At the big candlelight vigil at Lake Eola there were 50,000 people. Ben remembers where he was that night, how he held the candle and cried uncontrollably. At the one year remembrance he stood in the exact same spot with close friends and managed to smile.  Peg O’Keef was reading a monologue from O-Town: Voices from Orlando on the Disney Amphitheater stage and she mentioned the ribbon maker in the monologue. At that moment a rainbow appeared above Lake Eola. It was a moment of reflection and hope. Perhaps we are going to be OK.

Love Trumps Hate

Posted on by Thor

On June 12, 2019 families of the fallen, survivors and members of the community gathered at Pulse to remember the 49 lives lost in a horrific act of violence. It was a chance to honor loved ones, to show support for the survivors and to honor first responders. It was 195 days since Orlando as a city changed.Orlando as a community continues to rise.

The sun was setting as Pam Schwartz and I arrived at the memorial ceremony. She branched off to make sure families were seated and I began to document the evening with a sketch. I had my own art stool and I sat in among the families leaning back against a tree. Several of the Angel Action Wings were in the crowd.

Several rows ahead of me I could see the father of Cory James Connell with his baseball cap and number 7 jersey. Cory was shot and killed on June 12, 2016 at Pulse. Later that year the family was blessed with the birth of a baby boy who they decided to name Cory as well. I sketched young Cory several times when the family spoke about their journey after the loss of their son. Now young Cory was a young three year old with wild hair and plenty of attitude.

During one of the songs a mother cried inconsolably to my right. Around me people turned and pointed their cameras towards the horizon. A large rainbow had formed as if an sign of the love and acceptance being honored. Barbara Poma offered a few remarks as did Buddy Dyer and Jerry Demmings. A sign language interpreter signed every comment of love and acceptance.  Then the names of the 49 were read. Unfortunately a few names were mispronounced.

Heather Martin a survivor of the Columbine shooting spoke candidly of her long road to recovery following that shooting. She talked about how loud sounds like fireworks could act as triggers. As she was talking an ambulance rushed by with it’s siren blaring which is another sound that triggers memories of that night at Pulse. “This unfortunate bond of tragedy has born incredible friendships, friendships that have kept me going when I struggle.” she said. Sharing her battle, her struggle helps overshadow the dark times with hope and love.

Plans are in the works for a permanent memorial and museum on the Pulse Nightclub site. Architecture firms from all over the world will be submitting proposals for what should be on this site. Opinions about what should be on the site are varied.

onePULSE Foundation Town Hall Forum – Changing Hate…A Conversation

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The onePULSE Foundation Town Hall Forum – Changing Hate…A Conversation, was held at the Orlando Rep (1001 East Princeton Street Orlando FL). The set was for a production of Elf.

Hate crimes in our nation’s 10 largest cities increased by 12% in 2017 the highest level in more than a decade. This Town Hall Forum brought national key influencers to Orlando to discuss how they overcame a hateful belief system, are addressing hateful messages and reaching others to dispel the belief that hate is learned.

I sketched the Morgan Stanley banker who introduced the evening at the podium. Barbara Poma the Pulse night club owner and founder of the one Pulse Foundation also introduced the evening. The panel was moderated by

Sally Kohn, author of The Opposite Of Hate: A Field Guide to Repairing Our Humanity she is also a  CNN political commentator and columnist.

Panelist

Daryl Davis, author of Klan-destine Relationships: A Black Man’s Odyssey in the Ku Klux Klan spoke about his childhood growing up in Europe where white and black are not an issue. His family returned to America and he joined the boy scouts. His troupe was invited to walk in a parade. He gladly put on his uniform and joined his fellow scouts on the parade. However during the course of the parade several small boys and adults began to throw small rocks. He thought, “They must not like boy scouts.” It wasn’t until troupe leaders shielded him that he realized that the rocks were only meant for him. At home his parents had to patch his wounds and he asked why people had a problem with him. He had never heard of racism. He couldn’t understand how someone could hate him if they didn’t know him.

Thus began a life long mission to speak with members of the KKK who hated him. Many of these conversations resulted in friendships. Daryl collects KKK memorabilia from people he has talked to who gave up their life of hate. Over 200 Klansman have left the KKK after these conversations with Daryl.

Dylan Marron is a blogger and host of Conversations with People Who Hate Me. He experienced a rush of euphoria as his online persona took flight. However this success also resulted in hate directed towards him online. He become obsessed with finding out who these people were who hated him. He would look up their contact information on social media and call them. These recorded conversations are what he shares online now. He and Daryl bot agreed that giving someone the chance to express their opinions often resulted in them being willing to hear their opinion. Conversation is about acknowledging someones self worth. In the course of each conversation there is usually a moment when someone has a dog rush in the room, of they step on a Lego. The moment they laugh together gives him a glowing moment of hope. All the differences of opinion melt away.

Sally asked everyone in the audience to think of three issues that they hold dear, be it abortion, gun control etc. Then she asked us all how many of us had researched that issue with government reports, research, or read multiple books on the issue. No one raised a hand. This is how people who have an opposite opinion also came to their conclusions. They only read enough to justify how they feel.

At the end of the evening, Theresa Jacobs who is stepping down as Orange County’s Mayor took to the podium. With one day left in office she seemed to want to clear the slate. She spoke of her childhood fear of black people but in school she befriended a black girl who had given her a pencil. Because she sat at the lunch table with this girl, she was ostracized by white students. She mentioned a gay boy who she dated and then a black boy she performed a trapeze act with. She expressed her support for transvestites but I think she meant to say transgender. This was the wrong forum to make that slip.  It was a strange litany and I stopped believing her sincerity.

In office she is best known as the woman who did all she could to block gay marriage, saying. “marriage should be reserved for a man and a woman.” She confided that this is the issue that conflicted with her Catholic beliefs. At a wedding for her son, she realized how her family was so important to her and how the vows in any wedding mean so much for her families happiness. She broke down and cried and realized she had been wrong. Everyone should have the right to get married and share that happiness.

Though every panelist agreed that we are living in dark times and that hate speech is rampant, they choose to battle the ignorance and hate one conversation at a time. If you disagree with someone try and avoid expressing your disdain, instead stop and listen and share your thoughts. This Thanksgiving if you have a relative who supports today’s atmosphere of intolerance and hate, try talking to them and plant a seed of light in the darkness. Change doesn’t happen quickly. But some people can change.

Pulse 2 Year Memorial

Posted on by Thor

June 12, 2018 marked 2 years since the massacre of 49 people at the Pulse Nightclub in Orlando. Barbara Poma the owner of the club held a vigil at the nightclub to honor those lost. She founded Pulse for her brother who was gay and died from Aids. The name of the club was meant to keep his pulse alive. Now that Pulse is looking to keep 49 other peoples memories alive as well. An interim memorial was installed on the site featuring landscaping and design from Dix Hite Partners. A large photo mosaic mural was wrapped around the the building. The mural incorporates hundreds of photos pulled from the Orange County History Center‘s collection.

Pam Schwartz and I went to the memorial on June 12, 2018 just before sunset for the memorial and celebration of life. I decided to stop and sketch the iconic Pulse sign since I figured it might be difficult to get a view of the stage. Pam ended up sitting close to the stage since she is involved with the Pulse memorial task force. The base of the sign had been encased in a solid plastic case which lit up as it grew dark. People could sign the plastic with whiteboard markers that were supplied. These messages could be periodically erases so new messages could be added. A father stood his small daughter on his shoulders so she could sign high up.

Several of the Sisters of  Perpetual Indulgence stood on the far side of the sign. They wore black nun habits and one wore a rainbow veil held in place by Mickey Mouse ears. The angels were out in force although I doubt all 49 were there with their PVC and bed sheet fabric wings. Jen Vargas was an angel and she sat in her electric wheel chair wearing the large wings. She has been through surgery and seeing an angel in a wheel chair seemed appropriate for the occasion. A teenage daughter hugged her mom in front of me. Barbara Poma spoke, but her voice was so soft I couldn’t catch a word.

Politicians took to the stage. Each had a set script which was interpreted in Spanish on a teleprompter so Spanish speaking members of the audience could understand what was being conveyed. County Mayor Theresa Jacobs went off script and the planned interpretation had to stop. County Commissioner Patty Sheehan was in the crowd early on,  but she disappeared before all the political speeches. One man had sound muffling ear phones on and he shook and hugged his dog. I thought he might be crying, but I think he just isn’t used to being out in public.

Blue and her dancers performed on the stage which unfortunately I couldn’t see since the crowd was so thick. A chorus sang a bilingual Somewhere Over the Rainbow medley that incorporated songs from Wicked. The song Changed for the Better was included and it is a song I have found inspiring since the day I first saw the show. A rainbow formed across the club and cell phones rose in tribute to record the moment.

Unloading Pulse Memorial Items at Off-Site

Posted on by Thor

After clearing memorial items away from the Pulse Nightclub,we drove to the onePULSE Foundation storage facility. While all the staff and Barbara Poma went upstairs to the air conditioned storage facility, I remained behind with the truck in the entrance bay. Call me paranoid but I didn’t want to leave the truck unattended. In Parkland, Florida where 17 students and faculty were killed in a mass shooting at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, there was a memorial set up outside the high school with thousands of flowers, banners, teddy bears, and pin wheels. A drunk and disorderly couple were seen by a witness taking items from the memorials of the Parkland shooting victims and putting them in their truck.

A witnesses said they saw 37-year-old Michael Shawn Kennedy and
40-year-old Kara O’Neil taking items from a fence outside the High School. When police arrived they found the items in the couple’s car. A deputy also saw Kennedy placing a box of pinwheels in the vehicle. They claimed they were going to set up their own memorial. One deputy noted that Kennedy said, “I ripped down the anti-gun banner because I am pro-gun.”

According to the incident report, these items from the memorial were
found in their car: a Parkland athletics trophy, a shadowbox with photos
of the 17 victims, 17 white metal angel pennants, dedication plaques
that say “The Mighty Seventeen” and “MSD Parkland Strong”, 3 white teddy
bears, an anti-gun banner, 25 pinwheel lawn ornaments some with the
victims’ names, American flags, and a red stone that says “Never Again.” It is hard to imagine what was going through their drunken heads.

After leaving the onePULSE Foundation facility, the Orange County Regional History Center staff went to the off site facility for their museum collection. After Hurricane Irma, that storage facility suffered damage when an air conditioning hatch blew off and gouged multiple holes in the warehouse roofing. Water soaked drop-ceiling insulation and tile panels, until they were so heavy that they crashed down exploding on the concrete floor like bombs.  All of the inside walls in the warehouse had to be replaced to keep the historic items from being over run with black mold. Dehumidifiers ran for weeks to suck moisture from the air. Pulse memorial items still on the floor were once again subjected to water, but a heroic effort was made to dry and restore everything and not a single item was lost.  The new Pulse memorial items were paced on palettes. With the two year exhibit opening on June 2, some of these memorial items might end up on display, which will be up much longer that the 7 days that the One Year Later exhibit was open last year. That exhibit had to come down to make way for a wedding reception. This year’s exhibition will focus on the new stories the History Center has learned and on what has changed for Orlando since last year.