ORLANDO, Florida — Orlando police have closed their investigation into the former owners of the Pulse nightclub without filing charges. Families of victims and survivors of the murder of 49 customers at the LGBTQ-friendly club, the police had asked them to investigate them for criminal liability.
No charges will be filed against former owners Barbara and Rosario Poma because there was no suspicion of negligent homicide, Orlando police said in an emailed statement this week.
About two dozen people, mostly survivors and relatives of those killed in the 2016 shooting, gave statements to investigators. They said that construction plans were not available to emergency responders during the three hours hostages were held in the club and that unauthorized renovations and alterations had been made to the building. They also maintained that the club was likely over capacity, had operated for years in violation of its conditional use permit, and had deficiencies in security and risk management.
Despite attempts to reach the Pomas, investigators were unable to interview them.
They concluded that the lack of blueprints did not hinder rescue workers, that it was impossible to determine how many people were in the club that night, that the city of Orlando never took action against Pulse when the nightclub changed its interior, and that there were too many uncertainties about how shooter Omar Mateen got inside.
None of the Pomas’ actions were carried out “with reckless disregard for human life” and “they could not reasonably have foreseen or anticipated a terrorist incident at Pulse,” investigators wrote in a report.
Mateen opened fire during a Latino night celebration on June 12, 2016, killing 49 and wounding 53. At the time, it was the worst mass shooting in modern U.S. history. Mateen, who had pledged allegiance to the Islamic State, was killed after a three-hour standoff with police.
The death toll from the Pulse shooting was surpassed the following year when 58 people were killed and more than 850 injured in a crowd of 22,000 at a country music festival in Las Vegas.
The city of Orlando bought the Pulse building last year for 2 million dollars.
Before the Pomas and another businessman sold the property, Barbara Poma was executive director of the onePulse Foundation, the nonprofit that spearheaded the effort to build the memorial and museum. The original project, unveiled by the onePulse Foundation in 2019, called for a museum and permanent memorial at a cost of $45 million. That estimate eventually rose to $100 million.
Barbara Poma stepped down as executive director in 2022 and left the organization altogether last year amid conflict-of-interest criticism over her stated desire to sell the Pulse property rather than donate it.
The city has since outlined more modest plans for a memorial. The original idea for a museum has been scrapped, and city officials have formed an advisory board to help determine what the memorial should look like.
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