![police response to gay bar shooting police response to gay bar shooting](https://archive.sltrib.com/images/2016/0613/wn_NightclubPoliceResponse_061416~1.jpg)
A fire set by an arsonist killed 32 people at the Upstairs Lounge in New Orleans in 1973 the arsonist was never caught. There have been a few previous attacks on gay nightclubs, but only one that caused a significant number of deaths.
![police response to gay bar shooting police response to gay bar shooting](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2015/11/25/us/25video-web2/25video-web2-superJumbo.jpg)
“If we live in culture where fear of difference is encouraged, that can, in the hands of crazy people, have dreadful consequences.” “When people are targeted by others who are scared of difference, they’re not safe when they go dancing, they’re not safe when they go out to pray,” she said. Tiven, CEO of the LGBT-rights group Lambda Legal, said the continued vilification of LGBT people by their detractors, and the continued resistance to expansion of their civil rights, was “an invitation to violence.” Orlando Nightclub Mass Shooting: The World Reacts He pledged allegiance to the Islamic State in a 911 call before the shooting, according to a law enforcement official familiar with the investigation who was not authorized to discuss the matter publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.īut LGBT activists had no doubt that their community was the intended target. Investigators were still trying to determine Mateen’s motives. A federal hate crimes law bears Shepard’s name. The highest profile of these included the murder of Milk, a pioneering gay politician in San Francisco in 1978, and the 1998 murder of Shepard, a gay college student in Wyoming at the hands of two men who beat him into a coma while he was tied to a fence. Twenty-year-old James Wesley Howell, of Indiana, had assault rifles, ammunition and chemicals that could be used to make an explosive, according to police, who said there was no evidence of a connection to the Orlando massacre.īefore Sunday, the most prominent incidents of violence against gays claimed one life at a time. In a separate incident Sunday, a heavily armed man was arrested in Southern California even as Mateen’s attack was ongoing, telling police he was on his way to attack a gay pride parade. Pride Parade Marches as Nation Reels From Orlando Massacre