ORLANDO, Fla. – After their respective opportunities to go inside Pulse Nightclub on Thursday, victims’ families and survivors boarded a bus to return to the hotel where they began the day.
Exactly nine years after the attack that changed Orlando forever, 59 people visited the site of what was once the deadliest mass shooting in American history.
A gunman killed 49 people on the morning of June 12, 2016. More than 50 people were hurt.
“There will never be closure, but a better understanding,” said Laly Santiago-Leon, whose cousin Luis Daniel Wilson-Leon died in the attack. “And just to feel… the building, that presence.”
Wilson-Leon, known to many as “Dani,” died next to his partner, Jean Carlos Mendez Perez.
“I truly love the fact that they were there with each other,” Santiago-Leon said.
Santiago-Leon spoke to reporters shortly after she walked inside Pulse for the first time since the attack.
She recalled her father sensing the area where Dani died. She said an employee with the FBI confirmed that was indeed the spot.
“All the memories of that day just kinda rushed through,” Santiago-Leon said. “But I will say, there was a sense of calm. I know that may sound macabre to some, but to touch it and say a prayer… to say thank you, to thank everyone.”
Darelis Torres also appreciated the solemn opportunity to go inside Pulse on Thursday.
“I know what happened,” she said. “But then there’s like a fog.”
Torres showed reporters the bracelets on her right arm. She pointed out one with the name of one of her friends, Jonathan Camuy, who died in the club.
Torres’s visit to Pulse Thursday marked the first time she was there since fleeing the club in the early morning hours of June 12, 2016.
Jorshua Hernandez also survived that horrific morning.
“When everything started, I said, ‘This is the music,’” Hernandez recounted.
Although he initially planned to visit the site on Thursday, Hernandez told reporters at the hotel that he had changed his mind.
“For my (mental health), I want to stay out,” he explained. “I want to close this chapter of my life because I want to keep going with my life.”
Hernandez, who was shot twice, expressed frustration with what he has perceived as a lack of justice.
Holding a thick binder during the interview, Hernandez said he planned to deliver it to State Attorney Monique Worrell, urging her to open an investigation into the circumstances surrounding the shooting and the venue.
The FBI is closing its investigation of the Pulse shooting, following the completion of the site visits.
Hernandez later told News 6’s Mike Valente he had decided to visit Pulse after all, as he planned to stand in solidarity inside with the sisters of one of the victims.
