Pulse trial: witness says a police officer refused help and threatened to arrest her

Witnesses at the restarted trial linked to the deadly Pulse nightclub fire described frantic scenes, rescue attempts and, in several accounts, police officers who refused or failed to help. Thirteen current and former police officers and commanders face charges over alleged serious offences against public safety in the blaze that killed 63 people and injured more than 200.

Accounts of refusal, threats and confusion

One survivor from Kocani, Nikolche Efremov, told the court how he left the club to take a friend to hospital and then returned to Pulse, where he found people lying everywhere and “didn’t know what to do.” Efremov said firefighters arrived and that he and a friend went into a bathroom where their friend David was “barely breathing.” He said a police officer standing outside refused to help when asked: “that’s not his job.”

Efremov also testified about being pushed and trapped: he said someone put a hoodie over his head and he was pinned against a gypsum-board wall that collapsed; after freeing himself he became stuck at an outer door until someone pulled him out by the hand. He told the court he had heard from others that a police officer had been standing between the two doors even before the fire and that the person appeared not to be in uniform.

Student witness Tijana Koceva, who was later rescued by firefighters, described running outside to look for her father and screaming “loudly and hysterically.” She said one uniformed person warned her that if she continued to shout she would be arrested: “if I continued to shout, I would be detained.”

A high‑school girl who lost consciousness in the fire also told the court how she ran out of air, was buried under debris and was later rescued. She said she noticed a police officer standing in the corridor, and that afterwards someone from the scene reportedly said, “let’s greet the policemen.”

Parents who lost children in the fire said the testimony that a police officer refused to help cannot go unnoticed. “If this is confirmed through the evidentiary procedure, then this is conduct that must be examined seriously. At that moment the Ministry of Interior had no time for excuses and passing the responsibility. There were injured people fighting for their lives,” said Aleksandar Naunov.

The trial was formally restarted after two lay judges were replaced; once the court returned to the testimony already given it continued in the witness phase. The proceedings concern the catastrophic night at Pulse in which 63 people died and more than 200 were wounded.

Photo: press material from the event