The 49 Victims of ISIS-inspired Terror Attack in Orlando
Instead of June celebrations, our country is in deepest mourning.
June is normally a time of joyous celebration, especially since many young people are graduating from high school or college and beginning the next phase of their lives.
However, our country is in deepest mourning, for it has lost 49 of these promising, beautiful young men and women to terror. The youngest, Akyra Murray (18), was celebrating her high school graduation with her cousin and a friend Saturday night when ISIS-inspired gunman Omar Mateen struck.
Murray’s mother, Natalie Murray, said she received a text message from her daughter around 2am, saying she had been shot and to come pick her up.
Soon after, she received a frantic call from her daughter.
‘She was saying she was shot and she was screaming, saying she was losing a lot of blood,’ her mother said.
Her parents sped back to the club from nearby Kissimmee, frantically trying to reach the teenager, who had been shot in the arm.
‘I just tried to tell her to remain calm and apply pressure to the wound,’ Mrs Murray said. ‘All I could hear was my baby screaming.’
Murray had just graduated third in her class, and was poised to play basketball at Mercyhurst University in Pennsylvania on a full scholarship.
This is just one of the many heart-breaking stories which are trickling out of Orlando. The full list of victim names has now been released:
Edward Sotomayor Jr., 34
Stanley Almodovar III, 23
Luis Omar Ocasio-Capo, 20
Juan Ramon Guerrero, 22
Eric Ivan Ortiz-Rivera, 36
Peter O. Gonzalez-Cruz, 22
Luis S. Vielma, 22
Kimberly Morris, 37
Eddie Jamoldroy Justice, 30
Darryl Roman Burt II, 29
Deonka Deidra Drayton, 32
Alejandro Barrios Martinez, 21
Anthony Luis Laureanodisla, 25
Jean Carlos Mendez Perez, 35
Franky Jimmy Dejesus Velazquez, 50
Amanda Alvear, 25
Martin Benitez Torres, 33
Luis Daniel Wilson-Leon, 37
Mercedez Marisol Flores, 26
Xavier Emmanuel Serrano Rosado, 35
Gilberto Ramon Silva Menendez, 25
Simon Adrian Carrillo Fernandez, 31
Oscar A Aracena-Montero, 26
Enrique L. Rios, Jr., 25
Miguel Angel Honorato, 30
Javier Jorge-Reyes, 40
Joel Rayon Paniagua, 32
Jason Benjamin Josaphat, 19
Cory James Connell, 21
Juan P. Rivera Velazquez, 37
Luis Daniel Conde, 39
Shane Evan Tomlinson, 33
Juan Chevez-Martinez, 25
Jerald Arthur Wright, 31
Leroy Valentin Fernandez, 25
Tevin Eugene Crosby, 25
Jonathan Antonio Camuy Vega, 24
Jean C. Nives Rodriguez, 27
Rodolfo Ayala-Ayala, 33
Brenda Lee Marquez McCool, 49
Yilmary Rodriguez Sulivan, 24
Christopher Andrew Leinonen, 32
Angel L. Candelario-Padro, 28
Frank Hernandez, 27
Paul Terrell Henry, 41
Christopher Joseph Sanfeliz, 24
Geraldo A. Ortiz-Jimenez, 25
The last victim on this list, Antonio Davon Brown (29), was serving in the U.S. Army as a captain in the U.S. Army Reserve.
On a Facebook message about his death posted by the Army Times many expressed sadness and anger that Brown lost his life as he did.
“Thank you for serving our nation, CPT. My deepest condolences to your loved ones,” read one. “R.I.P. Captain Antonio Brown, sir! You didn’t deserve to die this way. It was a senseless hateful act,” read another.
June is also the time of weddings. Two of the dead were a couple.
Instead of saying “I do” together, starting a family together or growing old together, Christopher “Drew” Leinonen and Juan Guerrero will lay together as their families say their final goodbyes.
Lienonen, 32, and Guerrero, 22, were both killed in the Orlando shooting, and their distraught loved ones told TIME they are planning a joint funeral to honor the men’s lives.
…Guerrero’s sister Aryam Guerrero said the couple were “so in love,” and were supported by loving families on both sides.
The arrangements are a devastating foil to what could have been. “If it’s not a funeral,” she said, “They were going to have a wedding together.”
Our prayers go for spirits of the beautiful young people who were killed, the comfort of their families, and the hopes that June 2017 will not see another terror attack.
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Comments
Suffer and burn eternity Omar and if your wife assisted you the same for her.
Maybe this can get the country past where some people insist on seeing homosexuals as perverted freaks damned by God.
Maybe that will relieve some homosexuals from feeling they must align themselves politically with elements whose purpose is to radically change the country into a statist entity run by elitist control freaks like themselves.
For this country to survive as it was designed to be requires citizens steeped in the characteristic’s intended by the founders. That won’t happen with division into mutually hostile groupings.
With faith in a Power greater than ourselves maybe some good can come out of this. . . . Maybe.
“Maybe this can get the country past where some people insist on seeing homosexuals as perverted freaks damned by God.”
Did you mean this as a broad brush statement or are you are talking about ISIS Islamists and specifically the its mass murderer Omar Mateen?
Or did you mean yourself?
“Maybe that will relieve some homosexuals from feeling they must align themselves politically with elements whose purpose is to radically change the country into a statist entity run by elitist control freaks like themselves.”
J. J.
I mean what I clearly said.
You can & will project into that whatever the hell you will to serve your own purposes.
It’s what you do. I won’t play your games.
That’s what Trump does with your “principled conservative” champions. It drives them & you nuts which is why you all hate him.
JJ is a kookservative, heavy on the kook. Full blown kook.
“Maybe this can get the country past where some people insist on seeing homosexuals as perverted freaks damned by God.”
My best friend at work—a gay conservative Republican Christian with a great sense of humor and work ethic the likes of which you rarely see these days … the kind of guy you see as the model patriotic civic-minded citizen—would scoff at this.
He grew up living all over the world as his father, a microbiologist, worked in hospitals in many countries.
He lived in Saudi Arabia for a couple years and saw how women were treated and no hint of homosexuality existed in public for obvious, deadly reasons.
He laughs at claims of Israeli “pinkwashing” (I showed him the posts here at Legal Insurrection) and claims of widespread intolerance towards gays in America.
If he read Jennifer Johnson’s posts here on Legal Insurrection, he’d also scoff at your claims that she’s a “kook.”
Even the most religious Christians and Jews are not throwing gays off rooftops nor advocating for their murder.
So please, stop with the nonsense.
“If he read Jennifer Johnson’s posts here on Legal Insurrection, he’d also scoff at your claims that she’s a “kook.””
Then he would not be smart enough to know a kook when he reads the rantings of one.
“Even the most religious Christians and Jews are not throwing gays off rooftops nor advocating for their murder.”
I don’t believe I made any such assertion. Quite the opposite of anything I’ve ever written. I’ve made it quite clear what I think of the Islamic culture.
“So please, stop with the nonsense.”
JJ is a Kook. As clear as it can be. Claiming or being a Christian doesn’t make a bit of difference.
What you have written is as nonsensical as anything I’ve read. It’s difficult to tell what you are even responding to, other than calling a kook a kook. If you have not seen bigotry aimed at gays in this country you have your eyes shut – see no evil. It’s a hell of a lot better than it was, but in most states, today, a homosexual can be fired for that reason. And the vast majority of homosexuals support the democrat party, your friend being in the distinct minority.
Your words are plain and clear. Not sure why someone is questioning your meaning. The good news to me is how this country has rallied to these 100+ injured or killed without any regard for their sexual orientation. You see long lines to donate blood. I read of a GoFundMe page that is over $3 million. Chick-fil-A opens on their sabbath to give out food for everyone involved in the effort.
There is hope for this country on moral grounds. Sadly, it takes a horrendous event to motivate some of us. Funny how the country behaves differently that some anonymous people on blogs (I’m not necessarily referring to LI but other blogs too. I’ve seen some really bad and hateful/judgmental comments by people posing as “Christian.”).
Had this been White or Euro night, instead of Latin night, at a straight bar, instead of a gay bar, I seriously doubt we’d see this sympathy, angst and bending over backward by the left or the right. There sure as hell wouldn’t be any $3M collected for them, and who even knows for sure that GoFundMe would even let them put a page up for donations. GoFundMe has a nasty habit of pulling anything they deem ‘racist”, which is pretty much anything white or for whites.
And I seriously doubt that Latino or homosexual websites or even Hispanic TV stations would provide a roll-call of the dead if the victims were all straight and white.
The attack itself and the following public slobbering are equally disgusting to me. I remember the left chortling when the attack on the Chattanooga recruiting center occurred and the likelihood of me forgetting it any time soon is nil.
Therefore, do I think this was terrible? Yes, it was. It’s very sad. Am I bleeding with sympathy because an 18 yr. old got killed in a bar at 2am? Nothing good happens in or around bars after midnight, especially in the cities, and an 18 yr. old just graduating from high school had no business being there in the first place. And I’m not softened to sympathetic tears for the two Latino dudes who were just “married” and will be buried together. I don’t support or believe in “gay” marriage.
I think Omar had a big hangup about being homosexual and did this not so much from an affinity for muzzies as he did to impress his dad, an alpha male muzzie who would probably have killed his own son if he learned he was a homosexual. They’re preying on their own now, in addition to Chritians, Jews and whites, and it’s high time they learn how it feels since they can’t seem to grasp it intellectually.
Fire away.
“…and an 18 yr. old just graduating from high school had no business being there in the first place.”
I guess they have no business serving our country in the military either, having just graduated from HS and all.
I spent a few late nights in bars at the age of 18. Didn’t expect any mass murderers…
Nice of you to blame the victims rather than the Islamic pos that murdered these people.
Bigot.
Blaming what victim? The 18 yr. old I specifically mentioned? If you had any reading comprehension you’d grasp that what I said speaks to judgment, not fault. An 18 yr. old girl had no business being in a bar that late for a variety of reasons. It just isn’t smart. You know that.
“Blaming what victim?”
” Am I bleeding with sympathy because an 18 yr. old got killed in a bar at 2am? ”
Yes, that victim.
“An 18 yr. old girl had no business being in a bar that late for a variety of reasons. It just isn’t smart. You know that.”
When I was 18, 18 year olds were being drafted and sent to places like Vietnam, were they were shot at and killed. Many of those 18 year olds signed up and volunteered to go.
18 year old women went to bars all the time. They had no reason to fear a crazed pislamic bastard would murder them. Should children be allowed to go to a marathon? Or to school?
You’re infantilizing 18 year olds is pathetic. None, not one of the people in that club were responsible for the death and destruction that occurred. According to your thinking, the 20 and 30 and 40 year olds shouldn’t have been there either.
Now, tell me, what are the variety of reasons that 18 year olds shouldn’t go into a bar? Other than ridiculous age of 18 to drink. How old is old enough for you?
Donald J. Trump Addresses Terrorism, Immigration, and National Security | Donald J Trump for President
https://www.donaldjtrump.com/press-releases/donald-j.-trump-addresses-terrorism-immigration-and-national-security
After the Pulse Club Massacre, It’s Time for Gays to Come Home to Republican Party
http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2016/06/13/pulse-club-massacre-time-gays-come-home-republican-party/
Jim Hoft, Conservative and Catholic, outs himself in response to Islamist murders.
Take your prejudices and stuff them.
I think Jim Hoft outing himself in all this is hilarious, especially because he is a Chump cultist.
Forget it. The blame has pivoted to Christians and bathrooms. The FBI dropped an investigation into this clown because they thought his coworkers–who were trying to report “issues”–were racist and islamophobic. The feds aren’t going to change. See something, say something, be accused of islamophobia and lose your job.
Here’s my question: Within hours of his evil attack the media is able to find all the dots that the FBI refused to connect. So it’s a safe assumption they knew this as well. We are told the FBI has neither the money or therefore the staff to surveil the people they need to watch. So, holy mother of *** how bad are the people they DO watch??? If this guy was one who they passed up, I fear how bad some of the others are.
It’s hard not to believe there are PC reasons for this blunder.
Two objections…
1. you are indulging in “reasoning from results”. Connecting the dots is not a big trick in the aftermath. It IS a big trick prospectively.
2. you are comparing two radically different things. The FBI has to develop a criminal case (or good reasons to continue an investigation). The press just needs to write a story.
I’ll also go on record as observing that…while PC crap does impede lots of things in America…the agents of the FBI don’t particularly want to have the knowledge that they shanked the investigation leading to ANY terrorist activity.
There’s plenty of evidence that they have done a great job in spiking many terrorists attacks.
“There’s plenty of evidence that they have done a great job in spiking many terrorists attacks.”
Other than manufactured evidence, where do you find this?
Barry, I find myself asking the same question. Too many stories the past few years about how the FBI or some other government outfit found out about something and prevented [insert event here] just in the nick of time.
We know about the attacks not stopped by any government agency, and we know about quite a few potential attacks stopped by astute civilians, and we know about government participation in criminal activity, encouraging it, and then some arrest.
What we don’t know are the potential attacks stopped by the government, in some case I’m sure for good reason.
Rags said “There’s plenty of evidence that they have done a great job in spiking many terrorists attacks.”
I’d like to know where he finds it. Perhaps it is out there and I’ve not found it. Legitimate question.
or it could just be the typical rgas throwaway.
You are hyper-reactionary. The FBI is ON RECORD that they are at times impeded for reasons that can be easily categorized as “PC”. Sure, everyone wants a good balance between civil liberties and safety. But this guy didn’t just slip by once. And if you study at least 3 of the radical Islamist attacks since 9/11 you see that PC had a bid role. Not all is pinned on the FBI. The military missed it(Ft. Hood). The San Bernardino terrorists were missed, also. And even the right-intolerant AP published information about how authorities made mistakes more than once.
But the “blame” doesn’t rest entirely with the intelligence and law enforcement agencies. It rests with those organizations and the culture at large. Sure, people who are now horrified post San Bernardino and post Orlando are spilling everything they observed. But getting that same information and discerning fact from “racism”, or whatever, is a job we must expect to be constantly perfected by the likes of the FBI, etc.
Germany has stated that it takes about 50 full time agents to track one..1…radical. The Administration is “flooding the zone” with the unvetted…
What “Fast and Furious” set out to do by Obama empowering the murdering of Mexican nationals is now passe when he is allowing hundreds of Jihadis into the country to kill Americans using the rights of Americans against them. The Left so much wants gun control that it will look the other way so innocent Americans can be murdered. It fulfills so many desires of the Progs to control and direct the course of this country. Gays, straights… the Administration needs victims. With the border lost, anyone with brains knows that hard core Jihadis, even Quds operatives, are in this country with real intent. The world is less safe for alternative lifestyles… not from the Right but from those empowered from the Left.
Casual. You presume several things: There is a scale of badness. This is probably correct. The feds use it to decide who to watch. Do you have evidence for this?
You presume the feds’ scale is similar to yours. IOW, you wouldn’t be sniffing around, say, the VFW. Or the Tea Party. Do you have any evidence the feds’ scale of badness includes jihadis?
Leslie,
Thank you for naming the victims. It is often inconvenient to do so, especially when there are so many, but I think it is worthwhile.
And, we do not need to name the perps any more than necessary to be assured that they have been properly identified.
There were at least two perps in this case: the shooter, and the unmitigated monster that shut and fastened the door to the single exit. If the claims that guy is making on video by ABC (supported also by text from one of the victims) are true, that guy aided and abetted murder.
http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2016/06/wow-pulse-club-patron-admits-blocked-exit-club-condemning-gays-certain-death/
It’s ok to name the bouncer, Imran Yousuf
http://thisainthell.us/blog/?p=66341
“…that guy aided and abetted murder.”
B.S. The guy was scared shitless. No hero.
A very Texan response to the Orlando terrorist attack.
http://www.breitbart.com/texas/2016/06/15/texas-gun-community-reaches-out-to-help-lgbts/