Former Orlando GLBT leader: “I don’t know how we did it”
Terry DeCarlo talks about the Pulse shooting and creating a playbook
On a June night in 2016, a lone gunman killed 49 people and wounded 58 others at a gay nightclub in Orlando.
Nineteen months later, both the city of Orlando and the LGBTQ communities are still trying to heal.
At the time, Terry DeCarlo was executive director of the GLBT Center of Central Florida, which offered a hotline for information, rides to blood banks and counseling to help victims and friends, according to the Orlando Sentinel.
DeCarlo, who has since reduced his role at the center to communications director because of health problems, was in Denver earlier this month to kick off the Outspoken Speaker Series, put on by both the GLBT Community Center of Colorado and the LGBTQ Student Resource Center on the Auraria campus.
Before his talk, DeCarlo sat down at the GLBT Center to chat with The Denver Post.
DeCarlo’s responses have been edited for brevity.
Denver Post: What is the thrust of your speech here at the GLBT Center? Terry DeCarlo: I want to get
across … how important this building is. Had our center not been there that morning, people would not have known where to go.
The city of Orlando woke up to something horrendous. They were crying, they didn’t know where to go, what to do. They knew they wanted to help. A lot of people sitting at home just by themselves, they needed to get out and they needed to know where to go, “What do I do?” — and they converged on the center.
And it’s so important for the
community to have a place like this that they can run to should something God forbid happen here in this city.
It’s more than 18 months after the tragedy and people still think everybody’s moved on, life is glorious, everybody’s gone back to work. They don’t realize one of our survivors just had his hip replaced for the third time two weeks ago. Another survivor is having another surgery on his head in a matter of weeks. things. People were hurting. They were looking for a hug. You had the people who said, “This is my city. I need to do something.”
And then you had people who just wanted to donate. They knew that we were in dire need, and we had a line of cars around the block about three times.
We had to make a plan. There was no playbook for any of this. We did this all on the fly. As (bottles of water) came in the back door, we had people clock it in, take it to the front door, we had someone with a clipboard of all the locations. Where are the families? Where are the blood banks? Where are the first responders? Where are the hospitals?
I had between 400 and 600 people in the center at any one time and it never stopped. They just kept coming. As one person would leave, three would come in. And they did that for two weeks. lot. We haven’t finished our playbook. Now, I said we’re more than 18 months. We’re doing our part, but the city, the police department and the sheriff’s office got wind that we were doing a playbook and said, “Let us put our own portion in.”
So we’re combining everything in Orlando so we can give it out to the cities — not only the LGBT centers but everybody who wants one can have a playbook.
After (the shootings) in Manchester, England, happened, I got a call from Manchester saying, “How did you do this?” After (shootings in) Texas happened and then even after Los Vegas, we got the calls. We started to guide them.
DP: Historically, what has been the role of an LGBT center? For you guys, how did that change after the shooting?
DeCarlo: Our center was, as many centers are, a support system for the community. One of the main things that we do, we’re the largest HIV tester in Florida. We expanded up to Hep C and STD because we were doing so many. We have 24 support groups. We have AA, NA … they’re all there. We’re there to support the community. What they want, we do.
That’s what the center has always been and was in Orlando. That day, the center became something that we never thought it could be. It became known worldwide. President Obama called the center out, calling us ground zero for community healing. To have the president of the United States call out a tiny little center in Orlando means we accomplished something. I don’t know how we did it. Everybody knew where the center was before, but weren’t quite sure that they needed it. They realized that day, that’s what that building’s there for. It’s there to help us, support us.
Did our mission change? Yeah, we had to go a lot bigger. From being in the bubble that we were in — our STD testing, our community groups — we had to reach out and realize we’re not only here for the LGBT community but everybody now. It was a big undertaking. It took its toll on all of us. (Note: DeCarlo suffered a heart attack after the shootings, forcing him to step down from his role as executive director of the center.) three of our good friends.
Just two weeks before this happened, it was Gay Days at Disney. (My husband) Bill and I help produce One Magical Weekend. We worked the whole weekend with one of our friends. He was in the club that night and never made it out.
Losing your friends, it’s a hard thing.
One of my board of directors works for One Blood, the blood bank down south. About three blocks from Pulse is one of their places to go. They opened that morning knowing they were going to be deluged with people.
The staff showed up and couldn’t get in, the manager hadn’t showed. So they got somebody there to open the place. They got up and running. The line started going. About 2K hours into it, they found out that the reason the manager wasn’t there was because he was laying inside the bar. Imagine going to work and finding out somebody you were just with yesterday is (dead).
It’s hard to talk about that. Those images play back in your head when you see a mom yelling her son or daughter’s name and running down the street. And you grab them because the press is behind them and that’s not a time for somebody to put a microphone in front of them and you grab that mom and push her into a building and you ask the people to please hold the door closed so the press can’t get in.
Seeing bloody clothes on the side of the street. You sit there that morning and you keep pinching yourself and you say “this can’t be happening” and all of a sudden, roaring down the street is the SWAT truck that you see in movies, guys hanging off with the helmets, and you think to yourself, “This can’t be real life. You only see this stuff in movies.’ And then you realize it is true. It’s really happening. you tell your loved ones you love them. You never know what’s going to happen in an instant.
These kids just went out to have a good time, to celebrate birthdays. They never came home. One of my survivors lost his mom. She was holding his hand and at the rush for the door, they were making their way out the door and their hands let go. He made it out, she didn’t. Make sure they know you love them.
If you’re going to fight with somebody, get over it. Heal. But always tell them you love them. Simple as that.