Behind every Orlando victim’s name is a life lived with passion, meaning and love. Here are just a few of their stories:
Tomlinson, 33, was an accomplished singer and performer who led The Frequency Band, which performed in Florida.
“He was such a charismatic person; he had this loud booming laugh that was contagious,” Taina Brown, a friend who worshipped with him at Victory World Church in Norcross, Georgia, said in an email to Mic. “I remember when he signed up for my small group, I didn’t know him at the time, just of him, and was immediately intimidated because he was so popular and so cool; I told him about that months later after getting to know him and he just laughed and said, ‘Girl, please!’”
Rios, 25, lived in Brooklyn, worked as a social worker and was in Orlando to celebrate a friend’s birthday, according to the New York Daily News. One friend remembered him on Facebook this way: “Enrique and I always had jokes about the people who would come in the shop jamming us up with drinks, ” the friend, Alana Coy, posted on Facebook.
Morris, 37, had recently moved to Florida from Massachusetts. A noted drag performer, Morris performed as “Daddy K” in Northampton, Massachusetts, with King St. Boiz, a local drag king troupe.
“She was my big brother in the drag world,” said Liz Mazzei, a friend who knew Morris in Northampton. “She was really into traveling, adverting, into sports, into music. She and I really bonded over '90s hip-hop R&B [but] she’d dance the night away to Justin Timberlake in a heartbeat.”
Murray, 18, graduated from West Catholic High School one week before the shooting. A basketball star and team captain, she earned a full scholarship to play at Mercyhurst University. In an interview with Mic, her coach, Beulah Osueke, called her “a leader” and “extremely selfless,” someone who “didn’t have any enemies.”
Camuy, 25, worked as producer for the Orlando-area hit show La Voz Kids and was a member of the National Association of Hispanic Journalists. “He was a great assistant producer and had been working with us since 'Yo Soy el Artista’ and previously at Telemundo Puerto Rico,” NAHJ President Mekahlo Medina wrote in a statement. “Most recently, he was working in audience management in the current season of 'La Voz Kids.’ Jonathan will be missed dearly.”
Franky Jimmy Bejesus Velazquez
Dejesus Velazquez, known to loved ones as Jimmy, was 50 years old and was an accomplished dancer. “He danced for a well-known company in Puerto Rico and traveled around the world,” Sara Lopez recalled in a phone interview. Also 50, Lopez had been a close friend since the two were 16. According to Lopez, they were lifelong pranksters. “We are 50 years old but we were like teenagers,” Lopez said, adding that she would tell Jimmy to hide behind a wall to scare someone and he wouldn’t ask why.
Read more about each of their lives
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