ORLANDO, Fla. – Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer has been in public office long enough to have weathered hurricanes, controversies, and crises, but nothing comes close to the call that came just before 3 a.m. on June 12, 2016.
Orlando Deputy Chief Robert Anzueto was on the line.
“Mayor, I have to inform you that there’s been a shooting at the Pulse Nightclub,” Dyer recalled. “There’s multiple casualties, and it’s turned into a hostage situation. Your driver is on the way to pick you up, and the Mobile Command Center is being deployed south of the club on Orange Avenue.”
Ten years later, Dyer still remembers what he did next: he called his then-26-year-old son.
“I don’t know whether he had ever been to Pulse or not,” Dyer said. “He was fortunately home in bed, so it freed me to do all the things that I needed to do.”
By the time Dyer arrived at the mobile command center, law enforcement agencies were converging from across Central Florida and beyond - Orlando police, multiple sheriffs’ offices, the FBI, and the Florida Department of Law Enforcement.
[WATCH: Items inside Pulse being preserved]
Asked whether he had ever received a call like that before, Dyer didn’t hesitate.
“Nothing comparative to that at all,” he said.
The weekend itself had already been marked by grief. The night before Pulse, singer Christina Grimmie was murdered at the Plaza Live. Days later came an alligator attack at Walt Disney World.
“We had three horrible events in the span of about four days,” Dyer said.
When Dyer arrived on scene, he didn’t fully know the scope of what was unfolding.
“No, I had no idea,” he said. “I didn’t really understand the whole magnitude until after the first press conference because we didn’t have a total on the people that had died that night, nor actually until sometime later the number of people that were injured as well.”
Police were still pulling survivors out of the building - people trapped in rooms and bathrooms, including one where the shooter was also present. Then came another terrifying turn.
The shooter “indicated that he had explosives and that he was going to blow up the remaining hostages as well as himself,” Dyer said.
With texts coming from inside and information being independently verified, Dyer said leaders believed the threat.
OPD Chief John Mina ultimately made the decision to breach, first freeing survivors from one bathroom and then continuing toward the shooter. Even after the gunman was killed, Dyer said something beneath the body appeared, at first glance, like a possible device.
That fear shaped a critical decision: delay the first major press conference.
“So that was about 5 o’clock (a.m.), and we delayed having a press conference until seven, 7:30 a.m. or somewhere in that time frame because we didn’t think we would instill confidence in people if we came out and had a press conference and the building blew up in the background,” Dyer said.
At the microphone, Dyer then tried to communicate what leaders knew, while the worst details were still coming into focus. At the initial briefing, Dyer said the goal was to reassure the public: that authorities had control, that the community was safe. But the death toll wasn’t yet confirmed.
He also wanted to define Orlando’s response.
“We weren’t going to be defined by the hate-filled act of this murder,” Dyer said. “We were going to be defined by a response… with love and compassion and unity.”
Then, as the first press conference ended, new information arrived.
“There are 50 people dead. That was 49 plus the shooter,” Dyer said.
Dyer says, announcing that 49 people had been killed remains one of the hardest moments of his public life.
“That was probably the toughest thing that I had to do in the entirety of the whole process,” Dyer said. “Just getting that in your mind that there are 49 people that have been killed on that spot and there were seasoned journalists there and they were in shock, I could tell on their faces when I described that.”
In those hours, Orlando wasn’t yet able to say who the victims were.
“Everybody was hoping their loved one was not one of the 49,” Dyer said.
Orlando Health waiting rooms were filled with hundreds of family members searching for information. Dyer said one lesser-known but essential step that morning was securing help from the White House to obtain a HIPAA waiver.
“So Orlando Health could tell the people that were there looking for their loved ones who the individuals were that they had and were treating,” he said.
At one point, the names of patients were read aloud.
“If your loved one was not on that list and was missing, you knew that he or she was probably on the other list - the bad list,” Dyer said.
The aftermath of Pulse brought a wave of global support: rainbow lights, messages from leaders and strangers alike, and a feeling in Orlando that something profound might change.
Ten years later, Dyer said he believes Orlando is better in some ways - but not as far along as he once hoped.
“We’re not in the place I hoped we would be,” he said. “There was a presidential election of consequence in that same year, and it kind of changed the mood of the country.”
A permanent memorial: progress after years of controversy
A decade later, one of the most visible reminders of the unfinished work is also one of the most important: Orlando still does not have a permanent memorial at the Pulse site.
The city has now taken over the process after the previous efforts led by the onePulse Foundation failed. The city purchased the Pulse property in 2023, as well as the doctor’s office behind it. Orlando has committed $7.5 million toward a permanent memorial, while Orange County has committed another $5 million. Dyer estimated total costs will be a little more than $12.5 million with additional private fundraising to create reserves and cover construction needs.
“When the onePulse Foundation failed, a number of the families came to us and said ‘you guys are the only ones that can get this done’ and convinced us to take that process over,” said Dyer. “But we have totally given it to the survivors and the families to dictate what it was going to look like. We had an advisory committee and I’m really pleased with what they’ve come up with and we are on target to be completed before I finish being mayor.”
“We have nothing to do with onePulse. OnePulse is done. We were never involved with onePulse. That was a separate organization. We tried to purchase the property at the very beginning and to run the process, but the Pomas wanted to do it themselves. They owned the property. We didn’t have the ability to simply take the property from them. So we let that run its course,” said Dyer.
“Unfortunately, what happened, in my opinion, is they got too grandiose and what they wanted to do it with having a museum as well as a memorial,” said Dyer. “If they had been focused simply on getting a memorial done, they probably could have got that done, but I’m really pleased with how we have done this in a transparent manner and involved the families and the survivors rather than the board that they had, quite honestly. So I think we’re in a pretty good place at this point.”
Asked about rumors of code violations at the nightclub, Dyer said investigations did not find anything that contributed to the tragedy.
“So we looked at that, the FBI did a separate investigation, and there are no public safety code violations that in any way hampered anything on that evening,” said Dyer. So there’s been a lot of rumors related to that, but there’s no substance to that."
As for any further investigations into onePulse, Dyer said he has moved on.
“Just as I moved on from the shooter, and he’s nothing to me, I moved on from that organization,” said Dyer. “If somebody wants to go after them, have at it, but we’re very focused on making sure that we continue to support the families and the survivors and get the memorial done.”
In the decade since, Dyer pointed to changes in how first responders train together, particularly joint operations between police and fire.
He also highlighted the growing acceptance of mental health support.
“Ten years ago, a lot of the police officers were still in that mode of, ‘I’m a big, strong police officer and I don’t need somebody to check in on my feelings,’” Dyer said. “There’s a lot more support for that now.”
He also acknowledged what doesn’t fade: the physical and emotional injuries survivors continue to carry.
“There are individuals who every single day since that night, they have lived with and thought about that,” he said. “That will be the case for the rest of their lives.”
For Dyer, one of the most vivid images from Orlando’s response isn’t from inside the command center - it’s from the community outside.
“Probably my most vivid memory was the lines of people wrapped around the building to give blood,” he said. “It gave purpose to a lot of people that wanted to do something and that was just heartwarming.”
The city’s public events marking the 10th anniversary included the CommUNITY Rainbow Run on Saturday, as well as a service at First United Methodist Church at 5:30 p.m. on June 12, along with private observances for families.
An art exhibit is also planned to open June 11 inside Orlando City Hall, featuring paint-by-number pieces begun by an artist and completed by families of the 49.
For Dyer, the memorial’s completion is deeply personal - and urgent.
“That’s the most important thing that I have left to do,” he said. “I want to make sure that it’s completed and that we have a place where the family members and anybody who wants to remember the 49 can go and pay their respects.”