At Stonewall, New York remembers Pulse nightclub victims

NEW YORK (FOX 5 NEWS) - One year has passed since a gunman who pledged allegiance to ISIS opened fire on clubgoers inside the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, killing dozens of people. Survivors, victims' families, and first responders attended a memorial service outside the shuttered gay club.

New York also paid tribute Monday outside the historic Stonewall Inn in Greenwich Village. Forty-nine people dressed all in white commemorated the 49 people shot to death inside the nightclub. Attendees read victims' names and lit candles. Survivors told their stories.

Donia Mohamed and Stefanie Kibbe, of Orlando, said they frequently hung out at the LGBTQ nightclub.

"When this happened there was not a way to not know someone who was affected or killed," Mohamed said. "Any orientation, any background, any anything -- everyone was welcome there, truly."

"There are casual friends of mine that I lost I can't even imagine the ones that were super close, how they must be feeling today," Kibbe said. "I can't believe it's a year."

"I was shot in my abdomen, which shot out my kidneys, my small intestines, the bottom of my sacrum and also split my pelvis in half," survivor Keinon Carter told Fox 5. He was among the hundreds injured in the shooting. He is now in a wheelchair.

He spoke at the Stonewall ceremony, sharing his experience publicly for the first time.

"At the age of 15 I lost my older brother to a gun, I recently almost lost my life to a gun," he said. "There's no other words for it but it needs to stop."

Gays Against Guns, a group formed a year ago just after the shooting, organized the Stonewall event.

"We strongly believe that 49 people would not have died in that club that night if a military-style weapon was not perfectly legal to buy," organizer Natalie James said. "And that's the sort of issue we're advocating about with Gays Against Guns."