The Aurora City Council has adopted a resolution condemning hate crimes perpetuated against the LGBTQIA+ community and calling on people to report incidents when they occur.
Councilmember Crystal Murillo brought the resolution up for council consideration on Monday in response to the mass shooting that killed five at Club Q, an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs. At least 22 more people were injured in the incident.
The suspect was arrested on suspicion of carrying out a bias-motivated attack, although charges could change as they enter the court system.
“This is not the first shooting targeting, you know, safe spaces in the LGBTQIA community but this one does hit close to home,” Murillo said.
Councilmember Danielle Jurinsky had suggested council take action to condemn all hate crimes, rather than focusing solely on the LGBTQIA+ community. She also suggested approving a proclamation or establishing a day of recognition instead of a resolution.
“This shooting is absolutely horrifying, and it just seems to add to a growing list,” Jurinsky said, naming the Aurora theater shooting, the Boulder grocery store shooting and school shootings as examples of the various places mass shootings have unfolded.
“These are all supposed to be safe spaces. You should be able to go the grocery store and make it out of there without being shot at. You should be able to go to a movie theater and make it out of there without being shot at. A nightclub. School,” she said.
Jurinsky said it should not matter where the attack takes place — from a mosque to a synagogue — because “it affects everyone.”
“We have seen so many of these shootings and so many attacks and I guess I just wish and would like to see that we condemn hate, and we condemn hate crimes against people,” she said.
Councilmember Alison Coombs agreed that all forms of hate should be condemned, she said, but that Murillo’s resolution was important because of its timing and direct message for the LGBTQIA+ community.
“In this case, with LGBTQIA people, we have been subject to an increasing amount of hateful rhetoric, hateful acts, a resurgence of a kind of rhetoric that I haven’t seen since I was a teenager,” she said, offering use of the word “perverts” toward LGBTQIA community members as an example and pointing to the recent swath of anti-LGBTQ legislation.
“That is specifically harmful to us,” she said.
LGBTQIA+ nightclubs can be like “the one little corner of the world” where people do feel safe, Coombs said.
“When I go to the grocery store with my spouse, I see people sneering and jeering,” she said.
Murillo told The Denver Gazette that when traditionally safe spaces become the scene of violence, it “instills a lot of fear” and can affect the feeling of safety in nearby communities as well. Aurora is a community that knows “how shootings specifically can have long-lasting traumatic” effects, she said.
Her resolution states the city council condemns hate crimes committed against the LGBTQIA+ community, and that although progress has been made toward acceptance and equality, the LGBTQIA+ community continues to “face discrimination, intolerance, and hate-motivated attacks.”
The United States is experiencing a rise in hate crimes for the fourth year in a row, according to research from the Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism. Hate crimes rose 4.7% in the first half of 2022, which looked at data from 15 major U.S. cities. Hate crimes rose by double digits in the two previous years, according to the study.
The Center for the Study of Hate & Extremism’s study found that Black, Jewish, gay and Latino communities were the most frequently targeted in the first half of 2022. Anti-gay crimes, it said, rose 51% last year from 2020, while anti-transgender or anti-gender-identity crimes rose by 6%.
In Colorado, a survey commissioned by Hate Free Colorado found nearly 3 in 10 adults surveyed say they were the target of a hate crime in the last five years, but only 18% reported the incident to police.
The Colorado Springs shooting unfolded on the eve of Transgender Day of Remembrance. At least 32 transgender people had been violently killed this year leading up to the shooting, according to the Human Rights Campaign. The number of transgender people who die as a result of violence is a likely significantly undercounted, it said.
Murillo’s resolution called on people within the LGBTQIA+ community and bystanders to report incidents when they occur. The resolution also called on law enforcement “to expeditiously investigate and document all credible reports of hate crime incidents and threats against the LGBTQIA+ community.”
Murillo urged communities to take incidents like the Club Q shooting and threats seriously, and for municipalities “to be really mindful” of how data undercounts hate crimes and to find other ways of supporting targeted groups.
To encourage better reporting, law enforcement should prioritize building relationships with the community, particularly those where trust may be suffering, she said.
“I think that’s probably a good start,” she said.
Her resolution says “we must remain vigilant in deterring oppression and discrimination against people based on sex, gender identity or expression, sexual orientation,” and that the city is continuing efforts to prevent hateful rhetoric and hate crimes targeting the LGBTQIA+ community.
“It’s so close to home. It felt necessary,” Murillo said. “And really, we should be supporting our LGBTQ community at all times.”
