After Pulse: Father Miguel Gonzolez

Posted on by Thor

Advisory: Please note that this post is about the Pulse nightclub massacre on June 12, 2016. It contains sensitive and difficult to read content.

Father Miguel Gonzalez, is the director at Saint James Cathedral in Orlando, Florida. After the Pulse Nightclub massacre Catholic priests, deacons and bishops provided pastoral care and leadership to the Hispanic community and the larger community of Central Florida.

When he heard the news, he was dumbfounded and in shock. New York City might be a target, Columbine in Colorado, but Orlando doesn’t seem like a likely target. Disney might one day be a target, but not Orange Avenue in SODO, Orlando. It was baffling.

The night before there was the murder of the young performer, Christina Grimmie, at the Plaza in Orlando. Father Miguel was a Radio D.J. before priesthood, so that senseless murder hit him particularly hard. He was still dealing with that when Pulse happened.

He had written Christina into his homily that weekend, so now Pulse became another overwhelming component. The driving theme remained, which was, how the power of love transforms. How can the community renounce these acts? How do we raise our families in a loving caring environment? This person was clearly mentally disturbed. How can proper care be provided to keep things like this from happening again.

Between masses he got a phone call from the Holy Family parish in Windermere, asking if he could come to the hotel where families were gathered. They needed bilingual priests, pastors, counselors and social workers. Some of these families were flying in from Puerto Rico. He headed over after the Spanish mass at 12:30pm.

There was a lot of chaos in that hotel. There were also a lot of good people ready to support and help.  Their focus was on the victims and relatives who were hurt by this. He ended up on the 3rd floor, with other ministers from different organizations, families would be brought up and into different rooms where they would break the news from the coroner’s office that the body of their loved one was identified.

You could her the screaming and wailing down the hallway. It was painful to listen to. Prayer was his life preserver to keep focus and keep calm. To pray for them. When the doors opened someone would come into the hall and ask, is anyone her for the Baptist denomination? Then that Baptist minister would enter the room. Or they would ask, is there a priest her, then father Miguel would go into the room.

There was a change of plans and everyone gathered in a big room downstairs. The lobby was jam packed. The media was all over the place outside. The hotel wanted to regain some level of normalcy. Miguel was told to prepare for havoc. Because there were so many people jammed into the lobby, he could not hear what was happening, or how the news broke. Comments trickled through the crowd. The message that made it back to him was that they were going to give the names of families who should report to the hospital. The hope then is that their love one is still alive. The move increased hope.

After the names were read, there were still a lot of families crowded together. They were all told the had to come back the next day. That is when chaos erupted. People wanted to go to Pulse. They wanted to go to their loved one. Where were they? Screaming echoed down the commodores. People grabbed their heads, they held one another and cried and then ran out the front doors of the lobby.

He moved to a side door near the back. They wanted to meet the families out front by walking around through the parking lot. Outside the wall of reporters were waiting, focusing on the mayhem. He mingled among the families, ready to respond and embrace. He needed to be present for the families.

One young man was very upset, frustrated and angry. He saw the collar and he was angry at the god that Miguel served. Where is he? How could he allow this to happen? He vented about this God who does not care. What could be said to not aggravate the situation? He told him about a brutal murder a family member in Puerto Rico to let him know that he at least understood in some the way the pain felt. Some common ground was found. They sat together and the young man brought over his family.

The next day Miguel went to the Senior Center. Families gathered, and slowly families went to the second floor where the news was conveyed. By then families knew that their loved one did not make it, but there was the agony of waiting. He knew a couple of the families. He prayed with them and talked to them.

His parish was opened up as a space for Catholic charities and social workers. In 20 years of priesthood this was the most challenging, and difficult event he ever had to deal with to provide healing hope and care. The healing for survivors would not happen over night. How could life return to normal?

 

After Pulse: Candice Crawford

Posted on by Thor

Advisory: Please note that this post is about the Pulse nightclub massacre on June 12, 2016. It contains sensitive and difficult to read content.

Candice Crawford is the CEO of the Mental Health Association of Central Florida. She is a member of the board of the Plaza Live as well. The night before there was a shooting of singer Christina Grimmie at the Plaza Live. The board came to this board room to try and deal with the repercussions of that tragedy. They were pretty shaken up about it. That board meeting happened all afternoon on the Saturday before the Pulse massacre. An 8am conference call was scheduled for 8AM Sunday morning 12 June 2016.

She got up just before 8AM and got a cup of coffee. When the conference call began the conversation was about the mass shooting. At first she thought the mass shooting might have happened at the Plaza, but no, they were talking about the Pulse Nightclub. What in the world is happening?  It was quite the weekend. She called several members of her staff after the conference call ended. They needed to have someone at the Mental Health Association to answer the phones. Phone call could be forwarded to one of the staff members in case anyone called looking for help. There were lots of calls.

The next day they needed several counselors in the offices. On the first day one person came in and the next day 4 or 5 came in. She decided that a Pulse directed counseling program would be needed. She realized there would be a lot of young people at that club who did not have insurance and they would need counseling. Fundraising began to get the program up and running.

Orlando United Assistance Center (OUAC) gave referrals and others sough help on their own. Everyone who has sought help has gotten help. At the time of the interview 118 people had participated in the counseling program. Confidentiality was of the utmost importance.

After Pulse: David Thomas Moran

Posted on by Thor

Advisory: Please note that this post is about the Pulse nightclub massacre on June 12, 2016. It contains sensitive and difficult to read content. Post written with narrator’s consent.

David Thomas Moran co-founded Gays Against Guns in the aftermath of the Pulse nightclub shooting. He participated in a sit-in for the 49 lives lost and was arrested.

David first became an activist in college. The Pulse hate crime and Donald Trump’s election made the stakes higher than ever for him. He feels marginalized people are being scapegoated and targeted for everything.

The day before the shooting at Pulse, a friend had returned to Orlando. He picked his friend up from the airport and his friend wanted to go out that Friday before the shooting, but David was tired and so stayed home. His friend went out and saw Drew Leinonen and Juan Guerrero at Southern Nights, another club in Orlando. That was the same night Christina Grimmie was murdered at the Plaza Live.

Saturday morning, David walked to Plaza Live to pay his respects to her. That night he had to work at the restaurant again. After work, he asked his friend if he wanted to go out to Southern Nights or Pulse. However their car battery kept dying. They struggled in the parking lot to jump the battery and by the time they got a charge they decided they were done for the night. They went home.

David didn’t sleep well that night. He noticed some vibrating. He got a text message that said, “there has been a mass shooting at Pulse.” What? He went to CNN and the top story was the shooting. It did not make sense. At the time the news said that 20 people had been killed. Searching Facebook he found a post from Brandon Wolf that said, “Eric and I were there, we got out.” If they were there then other friends might have been there. Drew might have been there. Are they OK? he started to message friends. He had already texted his family to let them know he was OK. When he reached Brandon Wolf he was told, “We got out but Juan has been shot and we don’t know where Drew is.” A friend sent a link to a news clip and it was of Drew’s mother. She was at the hospital trying to figure out where he was. David froze.

Drew Leinonen and Juan Guerrero had planned to have a pool party on June 12, 2016 and they had invited David. He was considering going. The whole day he kept thinking, this is just supposed to be a pool party. The news announced that Juan was one of the first three who was confirmed dead. Juan and Drew’s pictures were being plastered all over the media.

David decided to walk to The Center and he got there around 9AM, then spent the whole day there. He posted updates and let people know where they could donate blood. He managed several Facebook pages that addressed peoples’ needs. At the Center, everyone stood and listened as President Obama came on the TV. He said it was an act of hate and terror. Moran felt some were calling it a terrorist attack to justify militarizing the police and anti-immigrant legislation, all of which he feels does not honor the lived experiences of the people who were victimized by this act of violence.

He left the Center and biked to Ember. He had originally met Drew at Ember. It was hard. Everyone was crying and grieving. There was a candle light vigil. We still didn’t know at that point who had been lost. Nothing was 100% confirmed. David went to Drew’s wake and funeral.

Much later, after the Dallas police shootings, Ida Eskamani contacted him and told him there was going to be a sit-in on gun safety reforms. They wanted to address intersectional concerns around racism, wage inequality, anti-immigrant sentiment, and Islamophobia.  Though he had worked with OPD through Bike Walk Central Florida, and had a good experience with that, he was hesitant to participate in this sit-in. He got to the sit-in just in time to walk in with protestors at 10AM. When he was arrested, he only had the red hat and a red heart in his pocket that you see in the sketch above. He had nothing else. That experience made him aware of the solidarity awareness movement coalition in Orlando. Various organizations sat in solidarity. After most people left, he stayed behind to sit-in with Ida. The sit-in made him realize that he had the power to save himself. The sit-in was largely about politician Marco Rubio‘s inaction. Rubio was confronted by David the next week. The Pulse shooting targeted people he did nothing to help. He used their oppression as an excuse to run for office again. He did nothing for gun safety laws, he did nothing for LGBTQ+ equality, and did nothing to alleviate the oppression of workers across the state.  Rubio was the epitome of the exploitation of the Pulse hate crime. People saw that confrontation. The Advocate dropped the story and it received a lot of coverage. That is when Gays Against Guns reached out to David about starting an Orlando Chapter.

After Pulse: Kathy DeVault

Posted on by Thor

Advisory: Please note that this post is about the Pulse Nightclub Massacre on June 12, 2016. It may contain sensitive and difficult to read content. Post written with narrator’s consent.  

Kathy DeVault is director of strategic partnership for the City of Orlando. She directed Camping World Stadium as it acted as a hub for victims families and survivors in the aftermath of the Pulse Shooting.

On June 11, 2016 Kathy was celebrating a college friend’s birthday. Her friend is very involved in the LGBTQ community. She loves to dance and many of her friends are gay men. She wanted a low key evening with five of her friends that night. They went to a desert shop in Ivanhoe Village. It as a relaxed evening with wine and desert.

The next morning about 4AM, the chief of staff, sent about 10 staff a text message that there was an active shooter  at Pulse and Mayor Buddy Dyer was on scene. Details were scarce. Her response was “I am here and will stay out of the way until I am needed.” She watched the news unfold that morning on TV.

She finally got a call from the deputy chief of staff that she was needed. She ran to city hall to get ear phones for the mayor. She parked near Chipolte south of Pulse and got through the barricades to get thing on scene. A lot of politicians were on site for the press conference and it happened to be an election period. Kathy was called to the scene too help greet and cater to the elected officials that were showing up. The mobile command center was a little south of Pulse.

At dusk the press conferences were over and city staff went to the emergency operations center. Kassandra, the press secretary, was overwhelmed by media inquiries, so Kathy decided to become her right hand woman. She spent the next several days answering calls from national and in international media. Media ascended so quickly because just the night before that had been covering the singer Christina Grimmie shooting at the Plaza in Orlando.

Later that week Kathy helped set up the Family Unification Center in the Beardal Senior Center. That is where families went to get updates form the hospital and FDLE about their loved ones. Media largely took over the parking lot and they got in the faces of family trying to get n and out of the center. The FBI and red cross wanted a more secure location. The decision was made to use Camping World Stadium. A city lead was needed. Kathy as recruited. A list of about 35 to 40 agencies was compiled who would become a part of the family assistance center. The Center needed to be open for families by 10 AM the next morning. Well, OK!