It Took Nine Years to Release the Photograph. Luis Capo's Family is Still Fighting for Justice Nearly a Decade After the PULSE Shooting.
- Pulse Families and Survivors for Justice
- 5 minutes ago
- 6 min read
For nearly nine years, survivors, victims’ families, journalists, and members of the public sought access to a photograph referenced in former City of Orlando spokesperson Tammy Hughes’ text messages — a photograph showing a blocked exit inside Pulse nightclub shortly after the mass shooting on June 12, 2016.
That photograph was repeatedly withheld from the public.
City records show that many reporters requested the photo in the days, weeks, and months after the shooting. The City purposely directed them to photos of yet another Coke "machine" that blocked egress that was visible to the public, as it was knocked over by police and left lying on the ground outside the building.
Journalists had no way of knowing that there were two Coke-branded beverage refrigerators strategically placed within designated egress routes because the City repeatedly misled reporters into believing that all relevant photographs had already been made public. In reality, the specific images documenting these obstructions were withheld from disclosure despite years of public records requests and media inquiries.
Journalists did, however, document contradictions in the City’s narrative.
Our families, survivors, and victim advocates asked questions and submitted our own public records requests. Yet the City of Orlando either claimed there were “no responsive records," pointed us to unrelated photographs already posted online, or claimed that no additional photos could be released due to legal exemptions.
We had to repeatedly demand these photos and then pay for them to be redacted, even though the law does not require such redactions. The City claims the redactions were justified under Chapter 119 because the photograph depicts body parts. However, all victims’ bodies had already been removed from the building before the City conducted its photography. Furthermore, blood itself does not constitute a body part exempt from disclosure under Florida public records law, and the City has previously released numerous photographs from Pulse depicting victims’ blood without similar redactions.
After nine years, the photograph finally emerged — but only because of persistent public records requests and continued pressure for transparency. A victim advocate is currently suing the City of Orlando to obtain the unredacted image, arguing that the City improperly withheld evidence from the public and showing that this was indeed a cover-up of the facts.
The recently released image clearly shows a Coca-Cola-branded beverage refrigerator obstructing an exit route inside PULSE nightclub — directly contradicting years of official denials and public minimization. Multiple news organizations have now reported on the photograph and its significance, including The Advocate, WESH 2, The Daily Beast, KIRO 7, The Sun, and Hoodline.
Capo’s family only learned about these conditions because another survivor who was trapped in the same space came forward years later, which prompted the renewed effort to demand these photos from the City of Orlando. City officials continue to deny that there were any issues at the club.
The revelation of this photo matters because the City of Orlando spent years publicly disputing reports that exits at Pulse were blocked or inoperable.
In the immediate aftermath of the shooting, inspection records and witness accounts raised serious concerns about egress violations at the nightclub. A fire inspection conducted shortly before the massacre documented at least one exit door as “inoperable.” Yet the City later claimed this notation was merely a “reporting mistake.”
At the same time, media outlets reported conflicting accounts about whether doors were blocked by vending machines or otherwise obstructed. WESH 2, Orlando Sentinel, WSVN 7, AP News, and Teen Vogue all documented the City-made controversy. Other reports repeated official assurances that no exits were actually blocked. Unfortunately, media outlets like WESH 2 and WPXI amplified those denials.
But the evidence now available paints a much more disturbing picture.
The problem was never limited to a single Coke machine.
Records, inspections, architectural evidence, sworn testimony, and post-shooting disclosures made possible through our years-long effort to access never-before-released evidence, collectively show that multiple exits and exit pathways at PULSE were compromised in ways that violated basic life safety principles.
Exit doors were blocked or obstructed.
Required panic and emergency hardware was missing from several designated exits.
Doors and exit pathways were improperly sized for the occupancy load of the nightclub.
Unpermitted interior walls funneled patrons attempting to escape into narrowed choke points.
Several exit routes led into areas enclosed by an unpermitted fence that itself lacked proper emergency egress hardware and instead relied upon latched gates that could not be opened by fleeing survivors and had to be "drop kicked" and knocked down.
The unpermitted fence surrounding portions of the property, including the unpermitted patio and fully-enclosed "service alley," was itself documented after the shooting.
Taken together, these conditions meant that many of the nightclub’s supposed “exits” were not true exits capable of providing unobstructed emergency egress.
Of the seven doors leading to the outside, five were compromised by obstruction, enclosure, hardware deficiencies, or unsafe routing conditions. Of the six designated exits, four failed to provide true, unencumbered egress.
Only two exits functioned as legitimate means of escape: the main front entrance and the south double doors, where multiple victims were shot as they tried to escape. Multiple survivors who fled into the bathrooms down the short corridor to the right (not pictured), claimed they did so because the round stripper stage appeared to be blocking their escape from their vantage point.
Neither the stripper stages or the furniture (photographed below) appear in PULSE's building plans.
Yet even the main entrance presented serious life safety concerns. Visible in photographic evidence, the front door was not appropriately sized for the occupancy load of the establishment, was not adequately separated from the only other functioning exit, and lacked required panic hardware. As you can see in the photo below, it had to be propped open and was usually propped open by the outdoor ashtray seen pictured next to the door.
Detective Adam Gruler later described in sworn FDLE testimony how the front door slammed shut with such force that he momentarily mistook the sound for additional gunfire. He also witnessed a woman banging on the door as shots rang out.
The consequences of the City’s public denials extended far beyond public relations.
By disputing inspection findings, minimizing code violations, withholding records, and publicly reframing documented hazards as misunderstandings or reporting errors, the City helped create years of confusion and misreporting about the conditions inside PULSE nightclub. Journalists attempting to report accurately were repeatedly forced to navigate conflicting official narratives, incomplete disclosures, and withheld evidence.
Worse, it was an obstruction of justice that prevented victims' families from suing the City of Orlando and the Pomas' for culpable negligence. The City’s ongoing cover-up raises profound due process concerns and traces directly back to the Office of the Mayor, which maintained longstanding personal and political ties to Barbara and Rosario Poma, whose business interests even extended into Orlando City Hall itself.
A decade later, the prolonged release of this photograph does not merely resolve a long-standing factual dispute. It raises a larger issue: the City's cover-up is a crime that has gone unacknowledged and unaddressed.
Our families and survivors deserved transparency from the beginning. The public deserved honesty about the safety failures that shaped the conditions inside Pulse nightclub on June 12, 2016.
Instead, critical evidence was concealed while official narratives hardened into public memory.
The photograph now released is not simply an image of a blocked exit. It is evidence of a broader pattern of denial, institutional self-protection, and the suppression of facts that survivors and families have spent years fighting to uncover.
Please, help us get #Justice4Luis and #Justice4PULSE.
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