ORLANDO, Fla. — On Friday, a former Orlando police chief and former Orange County sheriff reacted to the mass shooting in downtown Orlando early Friday that left two dead and eight injured.

Both praised the Orlando Police Department for officers' swift actions to stop the threat and protect the lives of the thousands of people who were in downtown at the time.

Nearly 100 officers were working on Halloween night as tens of thousands of revelers gathered in downtown Orlando.

Just after 1 a.m., 17-year-old Jaylen Dwayne Edgar is accused of opening fire in downtown, killing two people and injuring six others. He is currently facing two counts of first-degree murder and six counts of attempted first-degree murder.

Spectrum News generally does not name criminal suspects under the age of 18, but decided to identify Edgar due to his previous criminal record, the serious nature of the alleged crimes and severity of the charges that have been filed against him.

“Nothing can prevent a situation like this from ever happening, especially when you’re dealing with the masses,” Rolon said.

The former police chief said the strong police presence in downtown during the event helped save lives.

“The presence allowed for the individual not to hurt someone else,” said Rolon, who served as chief of the Orlando Police Department from 2018 to 2022. “When the one officer tackled him — which very commendable what the officer did.”

Rolon said he knows the ins and outs of downtown Orlando, and understands that it often plays host to large crowds. 

“The city of Orlando is very used to working these types of events, but its challenging, very challenging,” he said.

Part of that is due to a large concentration of bars in a small area, he said.

Rolon said there could be other options for officials to analyze while making plans to prevent similar shootings in the future.

“Short of fencing the entire downtown area and having checkpoints everywhere, every alley, every street is very difficult to do that,” he said. “But as we have seen at the theme parks, there are entry points and exit points and it has worked very well there.”

Beary, who served as Orange County sheriff from 1993 to 2009, said the investigation into Friday’s shooting could go on for several weeks. 

“This is a definite mass shooting incident,” he said. “It’s a very sad situation, and another one that we have to work through in the Orlando area because it’s probably less than 2 miles from the Pulse incident.”

“What was the motive?” he added. “Why did it happen? What can we do to prevent it later?”

As of Friday, Beary was in Albuquerque, N.M., conducting an active shooter training.

“As I told and briefed my students here in New Mexico today, I said it can happen in a metropolitan city, it can happen in a rural city and I think the city of Orlando responded in a very effective manner last night,” he said.