'A friend you could always call': Families remember the victims of the Orlando massacre

Orlando: The people of Orlando grieved and remembered the dead after a gunman murdered 50 people at a gay nightclub in the Florida city, but there was also defiance in the face of tragedy. On Sunday evening many relatives kept anxious vigils at the bedsides of wounded loved ones at Orlando Regional Medical Center. Angel Colon emerged from the hospital thankful to have found his son Angel Jr, 26, alive and in stable condition despite three gunshot wounds, including a bullet that went through his thigh. Knocked to the ground by the bullets and with his leg broken, Angel was unable to flee Pulse, the popular nightspot that turned into a bloody shooting gallery just before closing time early Sunday. Colon said a girl fell to the ground next to his son, and they held hands as the gunman moved around the room methodically pumping bullets into people on the ground. “Then he shot the girl he was holding hands with,” Colon said. “It looks like she didn’t make it.” [caption id=“attachment_2831634” align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  A scene at the vigil in Florida. AP[/caption] “When I saw him, I held him,” Colon said of his son. “I told him in Spanish, ‘Pai, God is giving you another chance’.” Earlier in the evening, authorities appeared before family members gathered at a hotel and read out the names of those hospitalised. Some in the audience broke down when they failed to hear the names of their loved ones, concluding they had died in the deadliest shooting attack in US history. At around the same time about 300 people gathered in El Calvario church not far from downtown Orlando to pray for the victims. Many were Hispanics, a reflection of the fact that Latinos were heavily represented among the dead and wounded. For about an hour they prayed and sang hymns, often with their hands raised toward the rafters as a violent downpour battered the city outside. Blood donors out in force But heavy rain did not discourage volunteers who lined up to give blood at mobile stations set up around the city. “At the central location there were thousands of people,” said Sonia Drudge after giving blood for the first time. “I was there at 11. It was a five-hour delay. I’ve never seen anything like this.” “My sister’s gay and I have many relatives in the gay and lesbian community and I feel that I just need to do this for my people,” she said. Claudia Santesimo, a regular at Pulse who waited three hours to give blood, could not get over what happened. “You expect maybe to see someone getting beat up in the parking lot but not an attack,” she said. Drudge, however, was not surprised. Orlando is a city that draws 62 million tourists a year because of its amusement parks and other attractions and has long been considered a terrorist target. “We know that we’re ground zero, that we’re at the top of the list for terrorist attacks because of who we are. It’s Orlando, it’s the happiest place on earth. I’ve been expecting this,” she said. More than radical Islam, the top concern mentioned by many Orlando residents is the proliferation of guns. Guns ‘out of hand’ “I’m sick of the silent prayers,” said Corrine Brown, a Democratic member of the US House of Representatives from Orlando. “We need to do something about guns in the United States. You should not be able to kill 50 people like that,” she told AFP. “It’s just out of hand. Guns that people have, it’s not for hunting, it’s not for protecting themselves, it’s for killing people.” Just hours after the attack and despite the staggering death toll, many in Orlando were already talking about rebounding from tragedy. “We’re a resilient community, a resilient state, a resilient nation,” Rick Scott, Florida’s Republican governor, told those gathered at El Calvario. Kathleen Gordon, the vice chair of a local school board, said: “This is devastating but it will not stop the love that Orlando has. We love our LGBT community,” she said. “They can’t stop us.” Remembering the victims  Edward Sotomayor, 34, was a caring, energetic man known for wearing a silly top hat on cruises, according to David Sotomayor, who said the two discovered they were cousins after meeting at Orlando’s annual Gay Days festival around a decade ago. David Sotomayor, who lives in Chicago, told The Associated Press Sunday that Edward worked for a company that held gay cruises and often traveled to promote the company’s events. “He was just always part of the fun,” David Sotomayor said. The two texted regularly and kept in touch, last seeing each other earlier this year at a filming of the television reality show “RuPaul’s Drag Race,” David Sotomayor said. David Sotomayor is a drag queen who appeared on a season of the show using the name “Jade.” He said Edward Sotomayor supported him and often sent him Facebook messages. They last exchanged messages late last week. “You never think that’s going to be the last time you speak to him,” David Sotomayor said. “It’s just heartbreaking to know it just can happen anytime.” Juan Ramon Guerrero, 22, told his cousin Robert Guerrero he was gay about two years ago, but he was worried about how the rest of his family would react. He did not tell them until just before the beginning of this year. And when he did? “They were very accepting,” said Guerrero, 19. “As long as he was happy, they were OK with it.” On Sunday morning, after learning that so many people had died at a gay nightclub, Pulse, that his cousin had gone to once in a while, Guerrero started to become concerned. Later in the day, his fears were realized when the family learned that Guerrero was identified as one of the victims. Robert Guerrero said his cousin worked as a telemarketer and in recent months he started attending college at the University of Central Florida. Guerrero said his cousin didn’t quite know what he wanted to study, but he was happy to be in school. And he was happy in a relationship with a person his relatives came to regard as a member of the family, Guerrero said. “He was always this amazing person (and) he was like a big brother to me,” he said of his cousin. “He was never the type to go out to parties, would rather stay home and care for his niece and nephew.” Stanley Almodovar III’s mother had prepared a tomato-and-cheese dip for him to eat when he came home from his night out. Instead, Rosalie Ramos was awakened by a call at 2 a.m. Sunday telling her something had happened. Ramos told the Orlando Sentinel her son, a 23-year-old pharmacy technician, posted a Snapchat video of himself singing and laughing on his way to Pulse nightclub. “I wish I had that (video) to remember him forever,” she told the newspaper. A friend, Hazel Ramirez, told the Washington Post she also saw a video from Almodovar on Snapchat and learned Sunday afternoon what had happened. Ramirez described Almodovar as “kind, but sassy,” and someone who was comfortable with his own sexual identity. “He was so proud of who he was,” she told the Post. “He would do his makeup better than anyone else. It was so easy to be myself with him. Kimberly Morris, 37, moved to Orlando just months ago and had taken a job at Pulse nightclub as a bouncer, the Orlando Sentinel reported. “She was so excited,” ex-girlfriend Starr Shelton told the newspaper. “She’d just started working there and told me how she was thrilled to get more involved in the LGBT community there,” Shelton said. Friends described Morris as a kind, sweet person. Narvell Benning met Morris when they were in college at Post University in Waterbury, Connecticut, where Benning said they both played basketball. “I can’t think of a time when I did not see a smile on her face,” Benning told the Sentinel. “I’m so thankful of the good memories I have of her. This is just unreal.” Everyone loved Luis Vielma, a 22-year-old who worked at Universal Studios, friends said. High school friend Eddi Anderson told the Tampa Bay Times that Vielma loved his job at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter and was known for his pleasant attitude and warm demeanor. Josh Boesch, who worked with Vielma at Universal, told the Orlando Sentinel: “He was always a friend you could call. He was always open and available.” Vielma “just wanted to make people smile,” another co-worker, Olga Glomba, said. with inputs from AP and AFP