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The owner of the Florida nightclub where a mass shooter killed 49 people has no issues profiting off other people’s pain … at least according to some of the survivors.
Barbara Poma, the owner of PULSE and founder of the nonprofit onePULSE, is leading an effort to build a museum blocks away from the site of the deadly shooting … but survivors say her plans are a smack in the face because it puts profit over healing their pain.
TMZ.com
Norman Casiano-Mojica tells TMZ … he and other PULSE survivors are pissed because, to them, Poma’s museum plans seem more like a tourist attraction than a tasteful memorial. He says the fact there will be a gift shop and admission fee makes him cringe.
Norman, who was shot twice during the tragedy and now has to walk with the aid of a cane, says he’s not against a museum or memorial … but only under certain conditions.
In his eyes, Poma has already botched the makeshift memorial outside Pulse. He says it’s more of a photo op than a place of remembrance, and that’s why he doesn’t trust her to get the museum right.
The onePULSE Foundation tells TMZ … they’re “following the model of other museums and memorials such as those in Oklahoma City and the National September 11 Memorial & Museum in New York City. As with those sites, the memorial will be free, while the museum will charge a modest admission, which will go to keep up the museum and the memories of those it honors.”
The foundation added, “Without a museum, there is no place to tell the story for future generations and we risk the tragedy being erased entirely over time.”
Norman and other survivors are fighting to stop the museum’s construction, and he has his own ideas for how best to honor the victims and survivors … without cashing in on their memories.
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