Orlando’s resilience after shooting: ‘This is a city beautiful. We are not beaten’

ORLANDO — The voices of Orlando are talking. Will we listen?

A massive candlelight vigil in downtown Orlando came and went Monday night. Thousands of mourners gathered to pay respects to the victims of Sunday’s shooting, but they don’t want the story of the tragedy to stop there.

Participants spoke to Yahoo News about the importance of the vigil for the local LGBT community and Orlando’s response to the tragic shooting. The wounds from the massacre at Pulse, the gay dance club where 49 people were murdered and dozens more were injured, were still fresh as friends of the victims and total strangers consoled each other and discussed gun control, LGBT rights and city unity.

Here’s what they had to say:

Rafael and Christiani

Rafael Martins, 28, who has lived in Orlando for 12 years, said the tragedy hits close to home as a gay man and a personal friend of several people who were murdered.

“This is very close to me. The whole gay community is a very strong community and a very small community, so I know a lot of people that died,” he said, as his voice trembled. “I’m very sad and heartbroken about the whole story. I had to be here.”

Martins’ hope for the future is that there will be increased gun control to prevent further bloodshed.

“I don’t think anybody should be able to buy an assault rifle and just go ahead and kill 49 people,” he said. “That’s just insane. I’m just very ashamed that this happened, but this is a very strong community, and we’re going to go through it and we’re going to get past this.”

Martins’ friend, Christiani Pitts, 27, is a straight ally who came out to support her friends and the city she loves. In the tragedy’s aftermath, she said she hopes the city will come together and recognize the importance of LGBT rights.

“I never thought something like that would happen in my hometown,” Pitts said. “To be honest with you, I still don’t know what to think. I don’t know if it’s going to get worse or stop. I just think we got to stay strong and united.”

Stephanie and Jackie

Stephanie Soto, 27, and Jackie McNeill, 24, got engaged last Fourth of July and scheduled their wedding for July 7, 2017. They live about 20 miles north of Orlando in Lake Mary.

The couple had been to Pulse many times and knew some of the victims personally. Soto grew up in Orlando and graduated from high school with several of them.

“It’s just horrific to see something like this happen in our own community. I can’t believe it,” Soto said. “I’ve grown up with these people. To just see their lives taken like this… I was breaking down.”

The young women, who are assistant managers at a Target store, recalled texting friends to see if people they knew survived. They said they love the people, environment and shows at Pulse.

Slideshow: Victims of the Florida nightclub shooting >>>

“If it was a week ago, we would have been right there. It’s just crazy,” McNeill said.

When asked if she had a message for the U.S. beyond the LGBT community, Soto replied, “We are all equal. On the inside, we all have the same things. No matter if you’re Muslim, Hispanic, gay, black, white, we all are people. We all have love. We don’t need this hate. We need love, and we have love.”

“Right here, right here,” McNeill added. “We have love.”

Soto said people should unite to fight against hate: “We can’t give up. We got to be strong for everybody.”

Fernando

Fernando Uribe-Romo, 33, a chemistry professor at the University of Central Florida, was walking through the vigil holding up a sign calling for a ban on assault rifles. He has grown frustrated by politicians who offer their thoughts and prayers in the aftermath of mass shootings but then take no steps to prevent future tragedies.

“A friend of mine was one of the victims. He and his boyfriend didn’t make it out of the club,” he told Yahoo News. “I’m here holding this sign because it’s time for us to stop praying and to demand our lawmakers — our senators and our congressmen — to change the law and to stop the disease, which is mass killing.”

Uribe-Romo said the epidemic of mass killing is a public safety issue and should be treated as such. He applauded President Obama’s argument that our collective inaction to limit access to firearms in the face of gun violence is a “political decision” — not a neutral stance.

“Obama is a great human being,” he said. “He is one of the most respected persons that I’ve never met, but I hope I do. He’s right. You’re either for or against. You cannot be neutral.”

Amanda and Lorena

Amanda Fromm, 28, from upstate New York, and her wife, Lorena Lotito, 24, from Venezuela, live in Orlando and go to Pulse regularly. They just tied the knot last January.

Pulse was hosting Latin night when the terrorist attack occurred, making the tragedy even more personal for the newlyweds.

“We are patrons of Pulse. We have friends there. We’re married. Lorena is a part of the Latina community. And so it was very close to home for us,” Fromm said. “A lot of people that we know or don’t know but recognize. The attack is very personal. We’re just dumbfounded. Our hearts are broken.”

Lotito considers the shooting an attack on the rights of people in the LGBT community.

“We feel like this totally affects the LGBT community in Orlando,” Lotito said, “And also, I feel like this was a very direct attack against our rights to love the person we want to love. We are here to stand for our rights.”

Giovanni and Casey

Giovanni Ramirez, 29, lives only a few minutes away from Pulse and less than a mile from the Dr. Phillips Center. He has been moved by the outpouring of love and compassion that the city’s residents have shown for one another after the shooting. And he does not want that feeling of unity to dissipate as the city recovers.

“Like the saying goes, it takes a village to raise a child. Some of us don’t have children, but hey, it’s still the same concept — that we unite. We are one,” Ramirez said. “It sucks that it takes something so tragic to actually get the community involved.”

He has no doubt that Orlando will bounce back from this: “Like a friend of mine said, ‘This is a city beautiful. We are not beaten.’”

Ramirez’s friend, Casey Cividanes, was born and raised in nearby Kissimmee, Fla., and has spent a lot of time in downtown Orlando. One of the reasons the news hit hard for locals, he said, is because everyone knows someone affected by the mass shooting.

“Everybody knows someone around here in the first degree rather than the sixth degree. We’re all just trying to help each other out here,” Cividanes said. “Community is so important. I think for us to come out, it’s a nice, polite way to show our grieving.”

Earlier Monday, there were just a handful of flowers and several posters outside the Dr. Phillips Center for the Performing Arts honoring the victims of Sunday’s tragedy. By nightfall, that small makeshift memorial had blossomed into a sea of people paying their respects. It was a huge rally for equality and unity.

On Tuesday, Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer announced the OneOrlando Fund to help locals affected by the tragedy, to address the shooting’s underlying causes and to deal with other needs as they arise.

“We will not be defined by the act of a cowardly hater,” Dyer said in a statement. “We will be defined by how we respond, how we treat each other.”

Contributions can be made at OneOrlando.org. The family emergency hotline is 407-246-4357.