Police in San Antonio, Texas, are searching for a shooter who left three people hospitalized after opening fire outside a nightclub on the city’s gay strip.
The shooting occurred after midnight on Monday morning, outside Pegasus nightclub. San Antonio Express-Newsreports that a fight broke out around 12:20 a.m., which prompted two suspects to get into a car and open fire on a crowd at a taco stand as they drove away.
Two men and a woman, all in their 20s, were hospitalized, and police say none of their injuries are life-threatening.
San Antonio Police Chief William McManus described the shooter as a man in his 40s, who was likely an “angry patron who probably had too much to drink and was kicked out of the club.”
McManus said that police don’t believe the shooting was a hate crime, and didn’t know whether the suspect had any prior relationship with the victims.
Mike Rodriguez, manager of Pegasus, told News 4 that the initial fight broke out after a dispute over food.
“A nicely dressed gentleman was ordering food,” he said. “The guy behind him I guess got irritated that he couldn’t make up his mind, called him a name. They started to push and shove each other. Our security broke it up, kept one inside, and took the other one outside, just to separate them. The one inside kept on yelling through the fence names at the other one and he got upset, and at that point, he walked off.”
Rodriguez added: “Then a couple minutes later he came back here to the stop sign and he had a gun and he shot three times in the air. They called me to the front and I came to the front and I told all the customers, everybody, to get inside, and started pushing people inside.”
Rodriguez said they managed to clear everyone out of Pegasus’ outside area, but he thinks the man “got in his car, drove around the block behind us and came down this road and open-fired at the gate.”
According to Rodriguez, none of the victims hit by the gunfire were involved in the initial argument.
Rodriguez told KSAT 12 that he intends to “beef up security. More than likely get an armed guard presence here, be more vigilant.”
Police are canvassing the area for witnesses and security camera footage to find anything related to the men, or the red Nissan sedan they fled the scene in.
The owner of a popular gay bar in the Russian city of Orenburg was arrested for "extremism" last week, just a few weeks after the club's art director and manager were arrested on similar charges.
Vyacheslav Khasanov, the owner of the LGBTQ nightclub Pose, was detained at the Moscow airport on March 29 and taken into custody, accused of "organizing the work of an extremist cell," according to Mediazona.
The club, which opened in 2021, regularly hosted drag parties. After the adoption of Russia's expanded law barring "LGBT propaganda," it marketed itself as a "bar-theater of parodies" and "a night bar with a show program."
Sacramento, California, has been designated a "sanctuary city" for transgender individuals.
Last week, the Sacramento City Council approved a resolution ensuring that city resources -- including law enforcement resources -- are not used to aid in out-of-state prosecutions of people who come to California seeking out gender-affirming mental health care, hormone therapy, or surgery.
The resolution prohibits city funds from being used to cooperate with any individuals or out-of-state agencies who are investigating people for pursuing treatments that are legal in California.
A Florida man has been charged with second-degree murder more than a month after fatally shooting a gay man whom he had allegedly previously harassed
Gerald Declan Radford, 65, shot 52-year-old John Walter "Walt" Lay on February 2 at the West Dog Park in Tampa, Florida, according to the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office.
Radford called 9-1-1 and told dispatchers that he had been in a "scuffle" with Lay when he pulled out his gun and shot him.
Initially, Radford had claimed self-defense, invoking Florida's "Stand Your Ground" law, under which a person is allowed to use deadly force if they reasonably believe doing so will prevent their imminent death or bodily harm. He claimed to have shot Lay following a "scuffle" at the dog park.
These are challenging times for news organizations. And yet it’s crucial we stay active and provide vital resources and information to both our local readers and the world. So won’t you please take a moment and consider supporting Metro Weekly with a membership? For as little as $5 a month, you can help ensure Metro Weekly magazine and MetroWeekly.com remain free, viable resources as we provide the best, most diverse, culturally-resonant LGBTQ coverage in both the D.C. region and around the world. Memberships come with exclusive perks and discounts, your own personal digital delivery of each week’s magazine (and an archive), access to our Member's Lounge when it launches this fall, and exclusive members-only items like Metro Weekly Membership Mugs and Tote Bags! Check out all our membership levels here and please join us today!