Thousands of People Celebrate Gay Pride and Honor The Victims of the Orlando Shooting
FREDRICKA WHITFIELD, CNN ANCHOR: Hello, everyone. Thank you so much for joining me. I'm Fredericka Whitfield. Happening right now in New York City, thousands of people are taking to the streets to celebrate gay pride and honor the victims of the Orlando shooting. Hillary Clinton is marching in the parade and you will see her right there in green. Pulse nightclub owner, Barbara Poma, is also attending today's events two weeks now after that deadly shooting in Orlando. NYPD is dramatically increasing its presence at this year's parade but stressed that so far there has been no credible threats to the parade or any other events this weekend. CNN's Chris Welch is live for us right now in New York City. Chris, what are people thinking and feeling?</s>CHRIS WELCH, CNN CORRESPONDENT: Well, you know what, Fred, a couple of weeks ago there was a lot of people voicing concern they might not be able to get out and show pride and celebrate two weeks after what happened in Orlando. But take a look behind me right now. We are in the heart of it here in New York City's west village. Here you can see there are members here from New York City council walking down. You just mentioned Hillary Clinton. She's just a few blocks away from us where we are right now. Obviously the crowds are huge. The mayor had predicted that we could see more than last year's record numbers of 1.6 million, and they do expect that to be even greater this -- address the issue whether or not</s>MAYOR BILL DE BLASIO (D), NEW YORK: I think it is an act of defiance on one level to come out and say we stand by our values, inclusion, love and tolerance. And we are standing up loud and proud and saying it embraces all people. So I do think there's a somber feeling obviously and this pain over what happened in Orlando. But the answer is not to run high. The answer is to stand up boldly and that's what New York City is doing today.</s>WELCH: And Fred, there's certainly no shortage of proud people out here today. We spoke to a couple to find out why it was important to be here. Take a listen.</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: I got married three years ago and it's legal and we love it and we're really happy, share with the world.</s>WELCH: And what do you want to show the world in the wake of Orlando?</s>UNIDENTIFIED FEMALE: That love is love. I know it's trite but it's true, love is love.</s>WELCH: And there's no question security is tight. Today, the mayor also telling us they have increased their security in a number of areas, current terrorism efforts. And they have hundreds and hundreds that's according to the mayor, hundreds of hundreds more security personnel than they did at this parade last year -- Fred.</s>WHITFIELD: All right. Thank you so much, Chris Welch there in Manhattan. All right, today, we are also learning new details about how things went down during that Orlando shooting two weeks ago. The Orange County sheriff's office releasing a 21-page report from officers who rushed to the scene, one recalling that night saying that he saw people running out of the club covered in blood. CNN's Nick Valencia breaks down the officers' accounts.</s>NICK VALENCIA, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): The first police report of shots fired came two minutes after 2:00 a.m. on Sunday, June 12th. 2:05, reports released by the Orange County sheriff's office describe an all-out assault. Deputy Marc Rutkoski writes following a barrage of gunfire, I obtained a stretcher and responded to the south side of the building. He assist a victim while the active shooter continues firing within the Pulse nightclub. Deputy Keith Fiddler (ph) is on the scene by 2:08. He immediately sees three to four bodies lying in the parking lot. Another officer,</s>WHITFIELD: Alright, Nick with us live now. So, how does this report kind a fill in the blanks?</s>VALENCIA: Well, we know -- we had a sense of the timeline coming in today. But getting this report, the very matter of fact there's very little emotion in them but you have to think what those officers saw and that it's going to stay with them forever. It was 193 minutes from the point that the first gunshots were fired, the first police reports of gunshots to the point where the subject, that terrorist was pronounced dead and find the team in the morning. So there is some criticism that is been lobbed towards the police, could they have done more? Did they wait too long to go in? From these records we see there was officers going in and outside of the club. They were going into the club. There was a period of time, though, that there was hostage negotiators talking to this subject. But it is just a chilling account to think about what these officers saw and first responders and what they had to go through moments after that shooting happened, the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.</s>WHITFIELD: It is incredible. All right. Thank you so much for bring us that, Nick Valencia. We appreciate it. All right. Meantime, people attending a gay pride parade in St. Peters burg Florida paid tribute to those killed in the Orlando massacre. The event started with a moment of silent and people carrying 49 signs, each bearing the name of a victim. Seven wounded survivors are still in the hospital, three of them remain in critical condition. So the shooting in Orlando carried out by the shooter who was an American born Muslim prompted Donald Trump to double down on his proposed Muslim ban. But now he says he would only block immigrants from countries with ties to terror. We will talk about this shift next.