Since 2005, the Orlando Fire Department has trained its paramedics on how to work with police officers to rescue victims from active shooter situations. In 2013, administrators began updating the department’s policy and buying equipment.
But the project wasn’t finished until after the June 12, 2016, shooting at the Pulse nightclub. During the event, police officers asked for the Fire Department to come inside Pulse. But with no policy in place to allow for that, and bulletproof vests sitting untouched at Fire Department headquarters, those calls went unanswered.
WMFE and ProPublica reviewed hundreds of pages of documents and emails obtained through a public records request, and interviewed more than a dozen firefighters to find out what happened.