The Orlando Fire Department announced the arrest of a man accused of setting a Pulse nightclub shooting memorial on fire. Mark Henson, 64, was charged on Tuesday with felony criminal mischief in connection with the fire. Just before 8:30 p.m. on Oct. 12, according to surveillance footage released by the onePULSE Foundation over the weekend, a figure in a wheelchair approached the memorial, setting fire to mementos and flowers pinned to its Offering Wall.
“The idea that someone could desecrate a space like that, do something so violent, and so hateful, it’s really heartbreaking to me,” Pulse survivor Brandon Wolf said to WFTV earlier this week. Though no one was injured, three banners were destroyed in the blaze—two placed by family members and one featuring all of the victims. The Pulse Interim Memorial honors the 49 victims of the June 12, 2016 massacre at the popular Orlando gay nightclub. The mass shooting is one of the deadliest in U.S. history. The site was designated a national memorial by President Joe Biden in June.
