Miami, Florida – The city of Orlando, in central Florida, paid tribute Wednesday to the 49 fatalities of the shooting that occurred three years ago in gay club Pulse, in a day in which politicians and citizens showed their rejection of the acts of hatred against the LGBTQ community.
During an emotional bilingual ceremony held at the Pulse Interim Memorial, where the nightclub is set up and which in the future plans to be a permanent museum, some 2,000 people remembered the dead, survivors and relatives of that ill-fated night for the city of theme parks .
“We will never forget them,” Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer said during the ceremony along with his Orange County counterpart, Jerry Demings, who showed a joint proclamation declaring this date with the label “Orlando Unida.”
The platform of the ceremony, sprinkled with floral arrangements, housed photos of the 49 deadly victims of the armed attack, who on June 12, 2016 took the ungrateful title of the worst massacres killed by a single person in history. recent US, for a year later be overcome by the massacre in Las Vegas (Nevada).
The Mayor of Orlando, who had previously participated in the delivery of a flower arrangement in Colonialtown Square Park, noted the appearance of a rainbow among the clouds to the attendees, who throughout the ceremony repeated that “love always wins “and many of them wearing T-shirts or caps with the rainbow, symbol of the LGBTQ community.
“As a mother I understand them,” Puerto Rican singer and actress Melina León said on stage, shortly before interpreting the theme in English “You light up my life”, in what was an act aimed at the relatives of the murdered ones in the discotheque, in their majority of Boricua origin that that night celebrated a “Latin celebration”.
At the end, all the mortal victims were named, accompanied by the exhibition on a screen of a photo of each of them, of the attack perpetrated by the American of Afghan origin Omar Mateen, who died killed by the forces of the order that same night .
Hours before the ceremony, the governor of Florida, the Republican Ron DeSantis, visited the memorial raised in the club and, according to the Sun Sentinel newspaper, promised to sign a law authorizing funds for the place.
The governor was the protagonist of a controversy because of a proclamation he signed on Tuesday in which he ordered the flags waved at half-staff for the third anniversary, but did not mention the LGBTQ community or the Hispanic community in the text.
“The state of Florida has come together to support Orlando and the Central Florida community against terrorism,” said part of the proclamation that signed and was released Tuesday afternoon.
The omission was criticized by Democratic legislators such as Anna Eskamani, in whose electoral district the club is based and who claimed an apology.
This Wednesday, DeSantis first amended via his official Twitter account, where he wrote: “Today we mourn the loss of life of 49 innocent victims of a terrorist attack inspired by ISIS (the Islamic State Jihadist group) at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando. , directed against the LGBTQ and Hispanic community “.
Subsequently, and after blaming his team for the omission, his office issued a new version of the proclamation in which he stated that “the state of Florida will not tolerate hatred towards LGBTQ and Hispanic communities.” (EFEUSA)
