Frenchmen traveling across US in jeep in honor of Pulse nightclub victims visit Tampa Pride

The friends are traveling in a Jeep signed by survivors of the massacre.

ByABC News
March 26, 2017, 3:55 AM

— -- Manuel Frederic and Alex Tisba lost friends in the November 2015 terrorist attack at the Bataclan theater in Paris, and because of this, the two Frenchmen have felt a kinship with those affected by the massacre last June at Orlando's Pulse nightclub.

So the pair decided to visit the U.S. and travel across the country in a Jeep, armed with a message of peace and unity, in honor of the 49 people murdered by gunman Omar Mateen at the LGBT nightclub, reported ABC affiliate WFTS in Tampa.

On Saturday, Frederic and Tisba stopped at this year's LGBT pride parade in Tampa, about 85 miles west of Orlando.

They've already visited Orlando, where they put the initials of the Pulse victims on the Jeep. Survivors of the attack — the largest massacre in modern U.S. history — signed the Jeep, and victims' friends and family members placed their handprints on the vehicle.

They two have also visited Washington, D.C., where they scored signatures from lawmakers on Capitol Hill.

"We're just people, citizens of the world, and we should all be united as one," Frederic told WFTS. "We started here because this is the United States. People from all over the world living together in peace — or should be living together peacefully — and that's what we're trying to reconnect here."

So far, the Jeep has visited 25 states, and the two are planning to take it to all 50. They are keen on getting former President Barack Obama's signature on the vehicle, since he was in the Oval Office when the shooting rampage occurred.

Frederic and Tisba's long-term goal is to return the Jeep to Orlando so it can be part of a Pulse memorial.

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