USA TODAY International Edition
POLICE DEFEND RESCUE BLITZ
Victims summed up U. S. diversity
They came, the president would later observe, “to be with friends, to dance and to sing and to live.” Most had that in common, along with their ethnicity, sexuality and youth. But those who gathered at the club Pulse “to live” — and died there — also summed up the diversity that makes America America.
They include a Starbucks barista, a UPS man and a gay cruises promoter. One was a telemarketer, another a pharmacy tech.
One worked at Universal’s Wizarding World of Harry Potter, a connection that prompted the author J. K. Rowling to tweet a photo of him in a Hogwarts school tie, with the message “I can’t stop crying.”
Among the victims:
KIMBERLY MORRIS,
37, moved to Orlando months ago and had taken a job at Pulse nightclub as a bouncer, the Orlando Sentinel reported. “She was so excited,” her exgirlfriend Starr
Shelton said. “She’d just started working there and told me how she was thrilled to get more involved in the LGBT community there.”
MIGUEL ANGEL HONORATO, 30, was married and had three children, according to his brother, Jose Honorato.
“My brother’s wife called me looking for him after she heard the news,” Jose Honorato said before his brother’s body was identified. “I called his cellphone and he would not answer.” Honorato said his brother went to the club with three friends — all of whom made it out safely.
STANLEY ALMODOVAR III posted a Snapchat video of himself singing and laughing en route to Pulse on Saturday night. His mother, Rosalie Ramos, wishes she had it to remember him by.
She thought her son, a 23year- old pharmacy technician, was coming home; she’d left a tomato-and-cheese dip waiting for him.
Ramos, 51, was at home early Sunday when her phone rang with news that Stanley was trapped inside the nightclub.
She raced to the scene and waited anxiously behind police cordons through the three- hour standoff between police and the shooter, Omar Mateen. She said Almodovar’s friends told her he’d tried to shield other victims in the club’s bathroom before being shot to death.
They moved to Orlando from Massachusetts in 2003. “We came here to have a good life,” Ramos said. “Then this happened.”
EDWARD SOTOMAYOR had a trademark that summed his personality: a silly top hat he used to wear on cruises, according to David Sotomayor, a self- described drag queen from Chicago who said the two discovered they were cousins after meeting at Orlando’s annual Gay Days festival a decade ago.
Edward Sotomayor, 34, worked for a company that arranged gay cruises, and often traveled to promote the company’s events. “He was just always part of the fun,” David Sotomayor said.
JUAN RAMON GUERRERO, who told his cousin Robert Guerrero he was gay about two years ago, worried about how the rest of his family would react when he told them at the beginning of this year. As it turned out, “they were very accepting,” Guerrero said. “As long as he was happy, they were OK with it.”
Robert Guerrero said his cousin, 22, worked as a telemarketer and recently began attending the University of Central Florida. Guerrero said his cousin didn’t quite know what he wanted to study, but he was happy just to be in school.
LUIS DANIEL WILSON- LEON, 37, moved to Florida from Puerto Rico, according to his cousin, Thron Crowe, who came to a command center Monday not far from the club to talk with authorities. Wilson “came from Puerto Rico because he was gay and couldn’t be himself there,” Crowe said. “When he got here he didn’t speak a lick of English.”
LUIS VIELMA, 22, worked at Universal Studios on one of the rides at the Wizarding World of Harry Potter. It was a good match.
“He just wanted to make people smile,” said a co- worker, Olga Glomba.