{"id":211085,"date":"2026-03-30T00:01:20","date_gmt":"2026-03-30T00:01:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/211085\/"},"modified":"2026-03-30T00:01:20","modified_gmt":"2026-03-30T00:01:20","slug":"pulse-survivors-call-out-the-city-of-orlando","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/211085\/","title":{"rendered":"PULSE Survivors Call Out The City of Orlando"},"content":{"rendered":"

This month, the Orlando Sentinel published a Letter to the Editor written by City Attorney Mayanne Downs<\/a>, which was nothing more than a rehearsed deflection dressed up as civic gratitude. We submitted our response the following day. The Sentinel did not publish it, once again choosing the City\u2019s voice over ours\u2014the actual survivors of the PULSE shooting.<\/p>\n

We agree with Downs and other city officials who repeatedly point out that the global response to the Pulse massacre was remarkable. The blood donors, the volunteers, the millions of dollars collected \u2014 none of that is in dispute. But every time accountability is requested, Orlando\u2019s political class pivots back to that same script. Resilience. Unity. The world\u2019s response. It is a reliable mechanism for quelling dissent, and it has worked for nearly a decade.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>Holding City officials accountable and questioning authority is not ingratitude. It is the foundation of citizenship and a functioning democracy. Public engagement is the only way we can get justice for the City\u2019s failures precisely because of its flagrant lies about the unpermitted renovations<\/a>, code violations<\/a>, and response failures<\/a>, which include the failure to follow active shooter protocol<\/a>. These failures increased injury, trauma, and death, and even turned sixteen \u201csurvivable wounds\u201d into \u201cpreventable deaths.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n

In her letter, Ms. Downs went out of her way to praise Heather Fagan, the Mayor\u2019s Chief of Staff, whose emails are currently the subject of a public records lawsuit against the City. She praises DeSantis-megadonor<\/a> Craig Mateer \u2014 without mentioning that he is a long-time client, the brother of assistant City Attorney Jody Mateer Litchford, or that he employs Mayor Dyer\u2019s son, Trey. She describes Mateer\u2019s purchase of the onePulse property as the result of a warm \u201cquick phone call,\u201d omitting that the transaction bypassed the City\u2019s standard real estate acquisition process entirely and injected cash into a failing, indebted onePULSE Foundation \u2014 bailing it out by giving it the cash it needed to repay misspent taxpayer funds and avoid a state audit<\/a>.<\/p>\n

This rushed financial transaction undoubtedly shielded the nonprofit from accountability, which was then being run by its Chairman Earl Crittenden; an eminent domain attorney who was Downs\u2019 former colleague at GrayRobinson and the City\u2019s former Chief Protocol Officer appointed by Mayor Buddy Dyer. In another taxpayer-funded financial transaction related to PULSE, the City handed the owners of the noncompliant nightclub $2 million<\/a> for a property worth half that<\/a> \u2014 public dollars that went straight into the pockets of the defendants that survivors are still suing for premises liability<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Furthermore, Mateer<\/a> is actively acquiring<\/a> real estate and developing downtown Orlando<\/a>, with millions more on the line from development projects<\/a> already in the pipeline. We do not believe his favors for the Office of the Mayor have anything to do with helping PULSE victims or the Orlando LGBTQ+ community. If this was a real commitment, Mateer would not have given significant financial contributions to the politicians who pushed to paint over the rainbow crosswalk at PULSE<\/a>, tried to erase our identities<\/a>, and are currently working against our Black, Latino, and LGBTQ+ communities<\/a>. Rather, we believe these favors have everything to do with strengthening personal and reciprocal ties in the Office of the Mayor, especially as Mateer has repeatedly needed the City\u2019s approval<\/a> to move his development projects forward<\/a>. Clearly, creating a mutually-beneficial relationship serves all of their personal financial, political, and legal interests\u2014at the expense of ours.<\/p>\n

Ms. Downs\u2019 own history here deserves serious scrutiny. In addition to the aforementioned conflicts of interest, for years Downs had in her possession a list of unpermitted renovations and code violations<\/a> at PULSE that City attorneys compiled in preparation of imminent criminal or civil litigation\u2014a list that City officials kept from the public and from victims\/survivors. This list was only released after it was discovered completely redacted in a random public records request and only after the statute of limitations expired for victims to bring claims against the City of Orlando. That was not an accident\u2014it was a strategy. While the evidence sat in their files, the City called off a post-shooting building inspection<\/a> specifically to document known code violations, refused to conduct a building inspection<\/a> after acquiring the building, and issued statements carefully engineered to mislead journalists and deny documented violations.<\/p>\n

There are multiple city officials desperate to perform a self-serving connection to the mass shooting that shattered and stole our lives. Some are the same officials who spent years ensuring we couldn\u2019t hold the City accountable, either through silence, obscuring the truth, or withholding the facts.<\/p>\n

We deserved a safe and compliant nightclub and a police response that didn\u2019t leave many of us trapped inside PULSE and bleeding out for hours. We deserve officials who don\u2019t try to bury the evidence and purposely mislead victims\u2019 families, survivors, and journalists. The City\u2019s ongoing grandstanding adds insult to injury.<\/p>\n

\u2014<\/p>\n

Carmen Capo, mother of Luis Omar Ocasio Capo\u2014murdered at PULSE and trapped for 30-minutes inside the nightclub by the beverage refrigerator blocking an exit<\/p>\n

Jorshua Hernandez-Carrion, wounded PULSE survivor trapped in the bathroom for over three hours<\/p>\n

Keinon Carter, wounded PULSE survivor shot twice and declared dead<\/p>\n

Norman Casiano, PULSE survivor shot twice, was trapped in the bathroom, and was shot at by responding police officers during his effort to escape<\/p>\n

Marissa Delgado, wounded PULSE survivor shot 12 times and trapped in the bathroom for over 3 hours<\/p>\n

Olga Disla, mother of Anthony Laureano Disla<\/p>\n

Martiza Gomez, PULSE survivor<\/p>\n

Aracelis Jimenez, mother of Gerardo Ortiz-Jiminez\u2014murdred at PULSE<\/p>\n

Christine Leinonen, mother of Christopher Andrew Leinonen\u2014murdered at PULSE<\/p>\n

Brenda Marquez and Michael Santos, cousin and brother of Brenda Marquez McCool\u2014murdered at PULSE<\/p>\n

Jessenia Marquez, mother of a PULSE survivor and cousin of Brenda Marquez McCool\u2014murdered at PULSE<\/p>\n

Isaiah Henderson, PULSE survivor and son of Brenda Marquez McCool\u2014murdered at PULSE<\/p>\n

Tony Marrero, wounded PULSE survivor who was shot four times<\/p>\n

Tiara Parker, PULSE survivor shot three times and trapped in the bathroom for over three hours and whose cousin, Akyra Murray died in her arms<\/p>\n

Ilka Reyes, wounded PULSE survivor who was shot nine times<\/p>\n

Cesar A. Rodriguez, PULSE survivor<\/p>\n

Darelis Torres, PULSE survivor<\/p>\n

Myriam Torres, Nelly Benitez, and Damaris Benitez, family of Martin Benitez Torres\u2014murdered at PULSE<\/p>\n

Passion Wilson-Suarez, PULSE survivor<\/p>\n

Jeff Xavier, wounded PULSE survivor who was shot in his leg, stomach, and neck and was trapped in the bathroom for over three hours<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"This month, the Orlando Sentinel published a Letter to the Editor written by City Attorney Mayanne Downs, which…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":211086,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[96648,96649,6275,96650,8132,96651,96652,96653,96654,187,12527,21580,96655,96656,96657,96658,6079,75699,96659,96660,96661,96662,96663,90482,96664,27642,2689,1432,96665,96666,65405,1375,96667,1961,96668,96669,50834,96670,96671,139,141,140,16741,96672,36343,96673,2632,96674,96675,96676,96677,6411],"class_list":["post-211085","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-orlando","tag-anthony-laureano-disla","tag-aracelis-jimenez","tag-attorney","tag-brenda-marquez","tag-buddy-dyer","tag-carmen-capo","tag-cesar-a-rodriguez","tag-christine-leinonen","tag-christopher-andrew-leinonen","tag-city","tag-city-attorney","tag-city-of-orlando","tag-craig-mateer","tag-damaris-benitez","tag-darelis-torres","tag-earl-crittenden","tag-families","tag-heather-fagan","tag-ilka-reyes","tag-isaiah-henderson","tag-jeff-xavier","tag-jessenia-marquez","tag-jody-mateer-litchford","tag-jorshua-hernandez-carrion","tag-keinon-carter","tag-letter","tag-lgbt","tag-lgbtq","tag-marissa-delgado","tag-martiza-gomez","tag-mayanne-downs","tag-mayor","tag-michael-santos","tag-mother","tag-myriam-torres","tag-nelly-benitez","tag-nightclub","tag-norman-casiano","tag-olga-disla","tag-orlando","tag-orlando-headlines","tag-orlando-news","tag-orlando-sentinel","tag-passion-wilson-suarez","tag-pulse","tag-sentinel","tag-shot","tag-survivors","tag-tiara-parker","tag-tony-marrero","tag-trey-dyer","tag-victim"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211085","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=211085"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/211085\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/211086"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=211085"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=211085"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=211085"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}