LGBTQ+ Arizonans gather in mourning and defiance after deadly gay bar shooting

This story originally appeared on The Advocate.

LGBTQ+ organizations in Arizona will hold a vigil Wednesday for two men killed outside a longtime gay bar, as advocates warn that a note found with the suspected gunman indicates other queer gathering places may also have been targeted. The apparent target in Tucson was larger than one gay bar.

When a gunman killed Vincent Anthony Siqueiros, 42, and Cameron Davis Capara, 33, outside Venture-N early Monday, he was carrying a note listing several LGBTQ-friendly businesses, police said. The discovery transformed a double killing into evidence that the violence may have been intended to continue across the city’s queer gathering places.

Now, Tucson’s LGBTQ+ community is preparing to gather in one of them — publicly, collectively and in defiance of the fear such an attack was designed to produce.

Related: Gunman kills 2 at Arizona gay bar with other LGBTQ+ venues on apparent hit list

GLAAD joined local organizations and elected officials Tuesday in mourning Siqueiros and Capara ahead of a vigil scheduled for Wednesday evening.

“Once again, our community is grieving after a deadly and senseless act of hate,” GLAAD President and CEO Sarah Kate Ellis said in a statement. Ellis called on elected officials to confront gun violence and the escalating hostility directed at LGBTQ+ people.

As The Advocate previously reported, officers responded to Venture-N, a longtime gay bar, around 12:30 a.m. local time Monday. Police found Siqueiros, Capara and suspected gunman Ousman Ceesay, 44, with gunshot wounds. The two victims died at the scene. Ceesay died at a hospital.

Investigators said Ceesay confronted the two men in the parking lot before shooting them. Tucson Mayor Regina Romero later said he had addresses for multiple LGBTQ-friendly venues and intended “to cause more harm.”

Police are investigating the killings as a hate crime. Chief Monica Prieto said authorities had found no indication of a continuing threat, but officers have increased their presence around LGBTQ+ establishments.

That reassurance has not erased what the attack represented to residents. Venture-N was not merely the location of the killings. For years, it has been a neighborhood refuge — one of the ordinary, indispensable places where LGBTQ+ people find community without first having to justify their presence.

“Places like Venture-N are more than businesses,” the Southern Arizona AIDS Foundation said. “They are places where people find friendship, chosen family, safety, and belonging.”

Tucson Queerstory called the attack “heartbreaking and infuriating” and urged residents to support the bar as its staff and patrons recover. The organization, along with the Southern Arizona AIDS Foundation and Southern Arizona Senior Pride, will hold a vigil for Siqueiros and Capara at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday at Catalina Park.

The Tucson killings arrive amid a sustained climate of anti-LGBTQ+ violence. GLAAD said its ALERT Desk has documented nearly 50 deaths and about 350 injuries in such attacks nationwide since June 2022. In Arizona, the organization has recorded at least 58 targeted anti-LGBTQ+ incidents over the past four years.

Rep. Adelita Grijalva, a Tucson Democrat, mourned the victims on the House floor Monday and urged Congress to pass gun safety legislation. Romero made a similar appeal, warning that homophobia combined with Arizona’s weak firearm laws had placed the broader community at risk.

“To our LGBTQ+ community,” Romero said, “you are not alone.”