Shooting outside Texas gay bar leaves three injured
The shooting happened last night (news 4)
Three people have been injured after a man opened fire outside a Texas LGBT+ bar.
An argument at a taco truck outside the Pegasus nightclub in San Antonio escalated after a man reportedly used a racial slur against another man, who then drove away while shooting a gun, injuring three people.
While the injuries suffered by the victims—two men and the club’s doorwoman—were not life-threatening, the attack stirred memories of the terrorist attack on Pulse nightclub in Orlando, Florida in 2016, which killed 49.
The club is a popular destination for queer people in San Antonio (PEGASUS NIGHTCLUB SAN ANTONIO/facebook)
Police have told KSAT that none of the people hit by gunfire were involved in the initial argument, adding that they were working to find the shooter.
The manager of Pegasus, Mike Rodriguez, described the incident to a News 4 reporter, saying: “A nicely dressed gentleman was ordering food.
“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.
The road has been blocked off (news 4)
“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.
“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,” Rodriguez added.
“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.
Bar manager Mike Rodriguez gave his account (KristinaDeLeon/twitter)
“We got mostly everybody cleared out of our outside area and I guess he got in his car, drove around the block behind us and came down this road and open-fired at the gate.”
While the Texas shooting does not appear terror-related, LGBT+ venues have faced increased security risks.
Last year, it was revealed that French police had thwarted a planned terror attack on a gay bar in Paris.
French Interior Minister Gerard Collomb told a committee of the National Assembly that the terrorists had a “plan of violent action” targeting “Parisian nightclubs and in particular gay clubs” in August 2017.
In March, an ISIS-inspired teacher in east London called Umar Haque was convicted of plotting attacks on gay bars and public landmarks in London.
The Old Bailey heard that he had abused the positions at a mosque and a faith school to attempt to radicalise a number of children to build a home-grown jihadist army in the capital.
And last month, a 17-year-old in Frankfurt, Germany was arrested after allegedly plotting a bomb attack on a gay nightclub.
The arrest reportedly came after intelligence was provided by the US that indicated the teen was planning attacks on a gay venue and a Catholic church in the city.
