Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer said Tuesday that he would have preferred to tell the public more about the investigation into the Pulse nightclub shooter this year, but said the FBI preferred telling people less.
“We as the city wanted to give out a lot more information than we ultimately did in the early timeframe because the FBI had an active investigation,” said Dyer at a Tuesday panel discussion held by think tank New America focused on shaping the narrative in the wake of terrorist attacks. “We would have loved to have put more of that information out there but our hands were kind of tied by the FBI,” he said as he spoke about the dangers of speculation by the media and the public in the absence of information.
“One of the more difficult things was trying to follow the FBI’s suggestions, they were generally a little more than suggestions, on what information that we could convey,” said Dyer. He recalled how he had seen national news networks doing profiles on the suspect, Omar Mateen, but then had to go to his first press conference on the incident and deny that a suspect had been identified.
In addition, he said the FBI didn’t want him to tell the public that officials initially believed Mateen was threatening to blow up the nightclub. Dyer said he held a press conference a few days later on his own, despite this warning, to tell the public that they initially thought the assailant had explosive devices, that that was why it took responders so long to reach the victims.
The mayor also pushed back against the local FBI’s suggestion to choose a spokesperson from law enforcement rather than from elected officials. Dyer argued using local police or federal agents as the public face sets “a whole different tone than if your elected mayor comes out.” He admitted that he believes federal level officials in the agency would not have been so responsive to the city government’s request.
“I’m gonna tell you, quite honestly, we were fortunate in that regard because the FBI’s federal spokespeople weren’t there yet until the next day. We might not have been able to convince them, but we were able to convince the local agent in charge that that’s the way it ought to be.”
