Today (June 12) is the six-year anniversary of Pulse nightclub massacre. In the interim, the City of Orlando has created this website containing all the available public records of that terrible event. (A judge had ordered the release of the 911 transcripts, which the FBI and the police were trying to hide, back in November 2016. See here.) Looking back now, what strikes me the most about the Pulse tragedy is just how slow the police were to respond. Sound familiar?
Hey, what are the FBI and the Orlando police trying to hide from the public in connection with the massacre at Pulse nightclub last month? The police’s slow response to the Pulse shootings (it took the police over three hours to rescue the remaining hostages that night)? Under Florida sunshine laws, 911 phone calls are public records and must be released to the public, yet Orlando police–apparently at the request of the FBI (see letter below the fold)–is still refusing to release all but one of the transcripts of the 911 phone calls made during the Pulse shootings last month, and even the one phone record that was released was originally censored, with all references to Allah and the Islamic State redacted. Isn’t this sorry episode yet another textbook example of the police acting above the law?
Another compelling reason to end Qualified Immunity.
Being too slow to respond is simply incompetence.