Page 6 - Seattle Gay News
P. 6
LGBTQ community suffers worst
mass shooting in U.S. history
There wasn’t much to report at rst. The is dark and ugly and horri c.
in this case are still unreported and the
by Shaun Knittel
police didn’t know who the shooter was, or Police say that the attack was planned
world is left to wonder if this will happen
SGN Associate Editor
how many of them there might have been. again as our government continues to vote and that Mateen, a U.S. citizen born to Af-
As blogs and cable news networks started to down common-sense gun safety laws and ghan immigrants, was prepared to engage
In the early morning hours of Sunday, crank out stories and try to beat each oth- restrictions on the sale and possession of them. He was found with a semi-automat-
June 12, peace-loving people the world er to the next sensational headline, people military-grade assault weapons.
ic ri e and handgun. According to recently
over learned that the unthinkable had hap- inside the club were dead or dying. Even- released transcripts of the conversation be- If a silver lining is possible in the face of
pened inside an Orlando Gay nightclub. It tually, hours into an intense shootout with tween 9-1-1 operators and Mateen during such violence, it would have to be the resil-
was there, amongst an almost exclusively police and a hostage situation, we learned the attack, he claimed allegiance to the ex- iency of the LGBTQ community, which is
LGBTQ Latino crowd of more than 300 that the mass shooting is being investigated tremist group ISIS.
once again on display for the world to see.
people, the worst mass shooting in record- as an act of domestic terrorism. According We will not be beaten . We will not go away The massacre has hit the LGBTQ com-
ed U.S. history took place around 2 a.m. just to of cials, 30 people were rescued during or return to the closet where we sit in qui- munity hard, as June is LGBTQ Pride
as the party was winding down. In all, 49 the police raid of the nightclub at around escence and fear. Love always wins. And Month. It is important to note that the vast
people were killed and 53 were transported 5 a.m. that Sunday. And although that was make no mistake, we will, some way, some- majority of the people killed or shot are
to three area hospitals. The gunman, identi- good news, there really wasn’t much more how, win this battle too.
Latino, LGBTQ, or both – and dispropor-
ed as 29-year-old Omar Mateen, was also good in the news that followed. Everything tionately of Puerto Rican ethnicity. As Se-
killed.
about the Orlando Pulse Nightclub shooting
attle Gay News goes to print, many details
abcnews.om
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6 Seattle Gay News
June 24, 2016
Celebrating 41 Years!
