In an all too familiar event, another mass shooting has rocked America.
A gunman opened fire in a gay nightclub early Sunday, killing five people and wounding 18 in the latest mass shooting to befall the country in a year in which anti-gay rhetoric has been amped up among extremists.
Lt. Pamela Castro of the Colorado Springs Police Department said police received a report of a shooting at Club Q at 11:57 p.m.
Castro said there was one suspect who was injured and was being treated. She said it was not immediately clear whether he had been shot by officers. She said the FBI was on the scene and assisting in the case.
The police department tweeted that it planned an 8 a.m. news conference at its operations center.
Club Q is a gay and lesbian nightclub that features a “Drag Diva Drag Show” on Saturdays, according to its website.
In addition to the drag show publicized on the website, Club Q’s Facebook page said the night’s planned entertainment included a “punk and alternative show” preceding a birthday dance party, with an “all ages brunch” scheduled to begin at noon on Sunday.
“Club Q is devastated by the senseless attack on our community,” the club posted on its Facebook page. It said its prayers were with victims and families, and “We thank the quick reactions of heroic customers that subdued the gunman and ended this hate attack.”
Colorado Springs is a city of about 480,000 located about 70 miles (112 kilometers) south of Denver that is home to the U.S. Air Force Academy. The city has long been an epicenter of American evangelicalism. Focus on the Family, a prominent evangelical Christian ministry, is based in Colorado Springs.
In November 2015, three people were killed and eight wounded at a Planned Parenthood clinic in the city when authorities say a man opened fire because he wanted to wage “war” on the clinic because it performed abortions.
The motive behind the shooting was not immediately known but it brought back memories of the 2016 massacre at the the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida, that killed 49 people. And it occurred in a state that has experienced several notorious mass killings, including at Columbine High School, a movie theater in a Denver suburb in 2012 and a Boulder supermarket last year.
In June, 31 members of the neo-Nazi group Patriot Front were arrested in Coeur d’Alene, Idaho, and charged with conspiracy to riot at a Pride event. Experts warned that extremist groups could see anti-gay rhetoric as a call to action.
The previous month, a fundamentalist Idaho pastor told his small Boise congregation that gay, lesbian and transgender people should be executed by the government, which lined up with similar sermons from a Texas fundamentalist pastor.
There have been 523 mass killings since 2006 resulting in 2,727 deaths as of Nov. 19, according to The Associated Press/USA Today database on mass killings in the U.S.
C’mon man! Muslims have a strict position on Homosexuality.
Love it when the mentally ill homosexics, religics, drug addicts start killing each other…
Praying for everyone affected personally by this evil deed. We as a nation have got to agree to disagree with other opinions than our own .Live & let live ! You may not agree or believe in others actions for their lives but that is none of your business. If you can’t accept something ,then stay away from situations that put you in the area . Ours is not the place to judge or pass sentences on others . If you take someone’s life out of hate or prejudice ,you are evil .
Buzz, I read your comments regularly, hoping that your humanity will one day emerge. I am still waiting. I am not here to judge anyone for how they live, including you. However, your comments are constantly so hateful, closed minded and off putting that I finally had to say something to you.
While I respect your freedom of speech, and ask that you respect mine and everyone else’s whose opinion doesn’t align with yours, I just don’t know how you can be so condescending and disrespectful to these unfortunate souls and all who are affected by this unconscionable tragedy. Would you feel the same if it were a child or relative of yours that was included in this group? I would hope not.
As Mary Kurzak iterated, it is none of your business and not your place to pass judgement. Comments like yours are part of the core problems in America today. No good can come from them. It just endorses the hatred that is rampant here.
Land of the free and home of the brave does not only apply to a select group of American people that you feel should agree with your ideas of what is ok. Liberty and justice for ALL should be just that. FOR ALL. Including you and those different than you.
I wish you well.
SO SAD, the Devil needs more of them.