Just after 7 a.m. nearly 10 years ago, Orlando police recounted to the public the first details of the horror that unfolded overnight while much of the city slept, reporting that 20 people had been killed at Pulse nightclub.
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Mayor Buddy Dyer, recounting his earliest memories of Orlando’s darkest day, said authorities knew at the time the number was far higher, but didn’t have a precise count. Minutes after the news conference ended, Dyer’s deputy chief of staff Heather Fagan approached him, looking pale. The real number was more than twice as large.
Later that morning, Dyer delivered the news to the nation.
“That was probably the toughest message I had to deliver, coming back out and not losing it and telling everybody that there weren’t 20 dead, there were 50 dead,” Dyer said recently, counting the 49 victims and the deceased shooter.
Looking back at him from seats on the asphalt along Orange Avenue, he said, dozens of seasoned reporters were shocked — audible gasps could be heard on televisions across the nation. “It was visible, the pain on everybody’s face.”
Throughout the ordeal, Dyer, who had been awakened before 3 a.m. by a phone call from a deputy police chief as the tragedy unfolded, waited in the police department’s mobile command center positioned just south of the nightclub along with Orlando Police Chief John Mina and representatives from a slew of law enforcement agencies. Authorities received information from those trapped inside the club through text messages to 911 or to family members.
From inside the command hub, they could hear police set off explosive charges to force entry into the building.
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After three long hours, the nightmare ended with a gun fight between the shooter and police, who killed him.
That night changed the city, painting it with rainbows on walls, light posts, utility boxes and crosswalks. Thousands mourned on the lawn outside of the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts a day later. Annually, church bells echo across downtown streets 49 times on the fateful anniversary.
Ten years after the massacre, the pain remains. Dyer said he thinks, at least in Orlando, compassion has endured too.
“We challenged our community to respond with love and compassion and unity. And I think we’re still that same community. The country has changed,” he said.
“I don’t think we have retreated from the concept that we’re a community that is very welcoming to everybody. And we need to continue to support the families of the 49 and everyone who was affected by Pulse.”
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