LOCAL

'We pray that it stops': Lake Worth leaders decry anti-LGBTQ violence after Colorado shooting

Mayor Betty Resch and leaders of the Compass LGBTQ+ Community Center said the risks of violent acts like the Colorado Springs shooting have risen.

Julius Whigham II
Palm Beach Post
Compass Executive Director Julie Seaver (left) and Lake Worth Beach Mayor Betty Resch remember the victims of the Colorado nightclub shooting during a press conference at City Hall in Lake Worth Beach Tuesday.

LAKE WORTH BEACH — Describing the mass shooting at an LGBTQ+ nightclub in Colorado last weekend as “inhumane,” local leaders gathered this week to decry the act and voice support for the local LGBTQ+ community.

The shooting last Saturday at the Colorado Springs nightclub that left five dead and injured at least 18 others came six years after the Pulse shooting, where a gunman killed 49 people and wounded 53 others at a nightclub in Orlando before killing himself. 

"The LGBTQ community has suffered," Lake Worth Beach Mayor Betty Resch said during the Tuesday news conference. "It's inhumane, it's unfair, and we pray that it stops."

A different punishment:Man who defaced Delray gay pride crosswalk must write 25-page essay on Pulse as he awaits sentence

'Can't you see I'm a girl?':Compass' long-time support for LGBTQ+ more urgent than ever

Resch said Lake Worth Beach has long had a special relationship with the local LGBTQ+ community, including being the home of the Compass LGBTQ+ Community Center and having one of the nation's largest gay pride parade weekends each spring. She described the city as a safe haven.

Vice Mayor Christopher McVoy hugs a friend next to Rolando Chang Barrero, right, during a remembrance of the victims of the Colorado nightclub shooting.

“We celebrate our community,” she said. “The thing that happened in Colorado just brought horror to all of us.”  

Julie Seaver, Compass' executive director, read the names of the five people who died in the Club Q shooting, identified by authorities as Daniel Aston, Kelly Loving, Ashley Paugh, Derrick Rump and Raymond Green Vance.

Colorado Springs police arrested 22-year-old Anderson Lee Aldrich on five counts of first-degree murder and five counts of committing a bias-motivated crime causing bodily injury. Patrons at the bar helped to subdue him after the shots were fired.

Seaver said a current environment of bias, discrimination and hate has placed the LGBTQ+ community at an increased risk of violence. 

"Communities at risk of hate-filled violence understand that an attack on one of our communities is an attack on all," she said.

She called for federal legislation in support of nondiscrimination laws, such as the federal Equality Act now before Congress, and spoke in favor of gun-control reforms.  

“Our children are dying in their schools and doing active shooter drills,” she said. “Black and brown people are dying in the streets. LGBTQ people are being discriminated (against) just for who they are. We need to grieve and we need to heal, but we also need to have Congress take action."

Lake Worth Beach Vice Mayor Christopher McVoy also called for gun-control reforms. 

"How many Pulses, how many Parklands, how many kids as in Uvalde … are we going to tolerate before we insist that our leaders do something in Tallahassee and in Washington?" McVoy said.

Seaver also spoke critically of multiple laws passed in Florida over the past year, including the Florida Parental Rights in Education bill, described by opponents as the "Don't Say Gay" bill.

"That bill was supposed to be focused on keeping LGBTQ people out of the conversation for K through 3 (students), but it has done so much more than that," she said. "The state of Florida Board of Medicine, the Department of Health, the Department of Education, they have launched attacks against the transgender community as well as transgender children and adolescents."

"It's becoming very scary to be an LGBTQ person living in the state of Florida, and I never thought I would say that," Seaver said.

Julius Whigham II is a criminal justice and public safety reporter for The Palm Beach Post. You can reach him at jwhigham@pbpost.com and follow him on Twitter at @JuliusWhigham. Help support our work: Subscribe today.