Le Monde | • Updated | By
It’s like a rainbow appeared in the sky was the night of Orlando (Florida). The Ferris wheel installed since 2015 in the US capital of amusement parks door, Sunday, June 12 evening, the colors of the flag of the lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT).
It s had done joyfully in January 2015 when the Supreme Court of the United States legalized marriage between same sex. This time, these colors are synonymous with mourning and are intended as a tribute to the fifty people killed on the night of 11 to 12, the Pulse, an LGBT nightclub in the city, under the bullets fired by an American Omar Mateen.
Born in New York of Afghan parents, the man came to Fort Pierce, where he resides, on the Atlantic coast, about 200 kilometers from Orlando. Before heading to the entrance to the nightclub, he called the emergency number, 911, for a brief call in which he referred to the organization Islamic State (EI).
In Pulse, everything changed to 2 am. This is the moment chosen by Omar Mateen to go on the attack. About three hundred people gather there for a Saturday evening festive rocker in the blood. The previous week, this 29 year old security guard bought two guns, a handgun and an AR-15 assault rifle widespread in the United States that has all the appearances of a weapon and dangerousness.
A police officer, who was working as a security guard at the club, intervened, joined by two agents deployed nearby. After gunfire exchanges, the shooter would, it seems, stood before returning inside the nightclub. Hostage-taking begins.
macabre count
It is nearly 5:00 when the elite police unit teams, SWAT , launching the assault. Two explosives laid by police clash as a diversion and an armored vehicle used to get inside the club. After an exchange of gunfire, Omar Mateen is killed, apparently with weapons in hand. The police made the announcement at 5 h 53.
After police killed Omar Mateen, a macabre countdown begins and a long work of identification. America wakes up with terrible news: twenty deaths, but the number is only temporary. By late afternoon on Sunday the official death toll of the massacre reported fifty killed, the majority in the walls of Pulse but also in hospitals where the victims were transported in critical condition. The first releases names often have a Hispanic sounding. The same report indicates a similar number of wounded. During the day, queues form quickly before Orlando hospitals for blood donations.
candles burn into the night. On Orange Avenue, behind the yellow ribbons arranged by police bar access instead of the drama. In the park of Lake Eola, where a hundred people is gathered in the late afternoon. They also burn before the Parliament House, another LGBT club located ten minute drive from the night martyrdom box. Illuminated announcing the shows proclaims: “We are Pulse, indestructible. “” Orlando Rocks! “ MacDonald replied that of the nearest of the tragedy.
” I could have been at Pulse “
The same slogan Figure on the poster that Dani Herboso presses against it, a few hours earlier, on Orange Avenue that is not taken by the police cars near the scene of the greatest massacre perpetrated with firearms of these last years. “I was with friends that night, but I could have been at Pulse. This place is very familiar to me, I even made a film , she says. Last week, it was the Gay Days here, “ a demonstration in honor of gay hosted by Disney. “ There were so many people, if someone had wanted to do the same at Pulse, it would have been even worse ” is-t scare it.
next to her, a young man who gives only two initials to his name, “CJ” has gone through a part of Florida to be there. He sells stickers, black ribbons of which stand out the six colors of the gay flag and the name of the Pulse. “We, gays, we are a family, so we are all concerned by what has happened. I could not not come “ he said.
Not far away, Elizabeth Kohl, eyes red with fatigue, crosses his arms on his chest despite the heavy heat of the early afternoon. A few hundred meters separate the house on Harding Street, the nightclub. Awakened by an explosion and then by ambulance sirens, she rushed to the scene in disbelief. “People were running, I saw a young crying, a damaged hand, I brought home me to treat him. He wept in despair of not having new friends with whom he was. “
The young man, a Puerto Rican, is expressed that in Spanish. Elizabeth Kohl asked his neighbor, Jay Daniel, translate. After examining the wound, she drove the victim to the nearest hospital before returning home, in the tumult. Two helicopters had already taken position in the sky and they patrol tirelessly in the gray sky above the area bounded by the yellow ribbons. Other chartered by the TV channels join later.
Since that night, the young woman trying to understand, glued to his TV and his mobile phone. “It’s so, so, so sad,” she slips visibly moved.
“Orlando will recover”
Established in 2004, Pulse was known in the neighborhood and beyond. “For a gay foreigner, that’s where he had come, provides Dani Herboso. “A lively place, but where there never had any problems,” Jay Daniel sighs. This is not a neighborhood problem, some people sometimes make too much celebration, but nothing more. “
This is confirmed by a young father refused to give his name who lives a little closer to 1824 on Hollenbeck Street. “Last night, I got home late, around midnight, with my wife, a bicycle tour. When the police came, we realized that something was wrong. They were so many. Very quickly, we felt they had control of the situation. . So we have not had time to be afraid ‘When asked about these expectations in the coming days, he thought a moment and then answered: “ Orlando will recover, it is a very dynamic city, but it is sure that it will also be a long mourning. “
in northern Pulse on Orange Avenue, dozens of trucks governed settled for a long siege and an unbroken succession of direct. Hassan Shibly, an official of the Council on American-Islamic Relations for Florida, multiplies the interviews. “We American Muslims, we are grieving like everyone else in the country. We Fla excellent relations with other religions but also with the LGBT community , he said. We must therefore resist hatred, nobody can defeat us to share ourselves, we will lose if we split. “
Needless to remind Hassan Shibly killings San Bernardino (California), in December 2015, or a little further in the past the bombing of the Boston marathon , Massachusetts, in 2013, or the Fort Hood shootings, Texas, in 2009. So many tragedies linked to jihadism.
“We are also victims because of the amalgam which they give rise. There was an outbreak of anti-Muslim acts in Florida after San Bernardino , he said. But what matters today is to show our solidarity, whether by prayer or fundraisers for victims. “
” A lone wolf “
” Staying united, “” resist fear “,” show that we are “ that’s the message delivered by the two senators of the state, Democrat Bill Nelson and Republican Marco Rubio, who was a candidate for the Republican nomination for the presidential election of 8 November.
The two men show up on consensus-conscious. Asked about a possible failure of the FBI, which had questioned twice in the past Omar Mateen, including radical remarks made on his workplace, Mr. Rubio refuses to open a debate and relies caution. “It is impossible to monitor thousands of people,” may make such statements, he says.
“ You’ll have to draw lessons necessary, but we can not at this stage to shift the blame to anyone. This is a lone wolf and you can not be 100% effective against a lone wolf, “ says Mr. Nelson, during an improvised press conference a few meters of the police barriers. “What matters is also to continue to live the same way and start a long grieving ” adds senator.
Come out of respect for the victims, the young José Alberto Notaro, 19, does not hide his dismay. “I never went to Pulse but I’m also going to box and it would have been me. This country is wrong, it is divided between communities, some make their own brainwashing, how to get out? “ he sighs.
In the Calvary Church, attended by Florida Governor Rick Scott, the faithful have operated at the request of the priest in light of their cell for a minute of silence. Later, a now infamous sign was lit at night in Orlando. Surrounded by the bright chorus of flashing lights and sirens of police cars. That of Pulse. The capital letter of the disco is bathed in a red glow that is tonight the color of blood.
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