Orange County Sheriff's Deputies Slam OPD During PULSE Response: Body Cameras Expose Cop-on-Cop Criticism
- Pulse Families and Survivors for Justice
- May 18
- 2 min read
Failure that gets people killed should not be protected—it should be exposed, criticized, and corrected.
That is what accountability looks like.
And notably, some of the sharpest criticism of OPD’s response at PULSE did not come years later from survivors, researchers, or activists. It came from other cops, in real time, while victims and survivors were still trapped inside the bathrooms waiting for help.
For nearly a decade, the City of Orlando has tried to sell the public a polished narrative about the police response at PULSE.
But the body camera footage tells a different story—one where responding Orange County deputies openly questioned OPD’s actions as the massacre was still unfolding—specifically Detective Adam Gruler's failure to follow active shooter protocol, which is to approach the sound of gunfire, locate the shooter, and neutralize the threat. The goal is to STOP THE KILLING as quickly as possible, and even as a solo officer.
On the body camera of Orange County Sheriff's Office (OCSO) Officer Johnerik Sanchez, one officer can be heard saying:
“You know OPD wasn’t responding after shots fired.”
In another recording, officers discussing OPD Detective Adam Gruler—the off-duty officer inside PULSE when the shooting began—can be heard saying:
“I don’t think he would run in there.”
Another deputy questioned whether “OPD has a different policy,” because there was already an armed off-duty officer at the club who failed to engage the shooter immediately.
The truth is, OPD had no written policy.
These statements matter because they destroy the fiction that everyone on scene believed the response was proper; OCSO Deputies knew OPD failed. They show that even other law enforcement officers recognized hesitation, confusion, and failure while the attack was still ongoing.
Cops are expected to know what the active-shooter protocol is supposed to look like. Officers are supposed to be trained to move toward gunfire, confront the threat, and stop the killing. And some of them clearly recognized that what was happening at PULSE was not that.
That reality was buried for years beneath political praise, media mythology, John Mina's lies, and OPD’s own self-serving narrative management.
But the body cameras recorded the truth anyway.
We have always recognized the first responders who acted courageously that night and helped save lives—especially those who reportedly pushed past hesitation, ignored bad leadership, or paid the consequences for defying orders so that we could live.
But acknowledging the officers who did their jobs does not mean giving blanket immunity to the ones who failed.
This body camera footage makes clear that even the cops knew that OPD failed hours into the shooting.
We have every right to call out the failures that cost lives.
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