DeWitt resident Corina Gonzalez told the State Journal that Maliah Gonzalez, her seventh-grade daughter, was targeted in the third incident. 

“She attempted to get to her locker, and there were some boys blocking the locker,” she said. “ And they were chanting things such as ‘Donald Trump for president; let’s build the wall; let’s make America great again; you need to go back to Mexico.'” 

Corina Gonzalez said her daughter, who is Mexican-American, was with two or three Latino friends when the incident happened. 

Gonzalez says she met with school officials twice on Wednesday to discuss the incident involving her daughter, but is not happy with how the district has handled its investigation. 

“You can never take back what’s been done to her.  You can’t take back that she’s endured racism at the age of 12,” Gonzalez said. 

During the meetings, Gonzalez says school officials confirmed they have identified some of the people who made racist comments to other students, but would not share with her what disciplinary actions have been taken. 

Another parent of an Asian-America student reported that her daughter had been told that she should be deported.  That parent told MLive that she hadn’t come come forward about her daughter’s experience because she didn’t think the school district would handle the situation properly.  DeWitt Public Schools Superintendent John Deiter responded yesterday evening with a statement: “We plan to address them very specifically, and we will also address them broadly to prevent further incidents and to make sure that all of our students feel safe and accepted at school.” 

Philadelphia: Pro-Nazi graffiti appeared at several locations around Philadelphia.  According to Anti-Defamation League regional director Nancy K. Baron-Baer said an incident at an abandoned storefront was isolated — for now — but CNN says that the words “Trump Rules,” “Trump Rules Black [expletive]” and the letter “T” were also spray-painted on three vehicles and a house. 

Assault and car theft:

San Diego: Two men allegedly targeted a Muslim woman, made comments about Trump and Muslims, then grabbed her backpack and stole her car.  Read more at NBC San Diego. 

San Jose State University: A man yanked the head scarf off of a student — comparable to yanking the dress off of a Catholic nun — and then caused her to choke.  Campus officials say they are investigating.  Read more at The Mercury News. 

Bullying and intimidation:

Students at Royal Oak Middle School in Michigan chanted, “Build the wall!  Build the wall!”  in the school cafeteria, scaring Mexican-American classmates.  The incident was caught on video and shared on Facebook.  The school district superintendent said personnel are addressing the incident, but parents say the response is inadequate, according to The Detroit News. 

Canisius College: Students posted images of an African-American doll hanged from a dorm curtain rod on social media.  College President John J. Hurley said students have been suspended and may be expelled.  Read more at the college website. 

Redding, Calif.: A student at Shasta High School tweeted a video of himself handing “deportation” letters to classmates of different ethnicities.  According to the Redding Record Searchlight, students at another Redding school expressed ethnic slurs and held up offensive signs directed at a predominantly Hispanic boys basketball team earlier this year. 

Buzzfeed is keeping a running list of incidents, including unconfirmed reports from social media. 

Medium and Quartz have additional roundups of social-media incident claims. 

Barbara Poma, owner of Pulse, appeared on NBC’s The Today Show this morning to speak for the first time about what happened early Sunday morning.  She described the club as “a safe, fun place to come be who you are.”  And she described that phone call she got that morning:

It was the most surreal phone call I’ve ever received.  When my manager called me and told me, and he was just yelling into the phone.  He kept saying, “We have a shooter!  We have a shooter!”  I just kept screaming, “What?”  And finally it sunk in and… you can’t wrap your brain around that.  You can’t. 

… I can’t stop imagining what that was like for them… I don’t think I’ll ever stop that. 

She opened Pulse about thirteen years ago in honor of her brother, who had died of AIDS.  She chose to name the club Pulse “because it has to do with your heartbeat.  It has to do with your life, and we just wanted to keep the heartbeat alive.” 

Lauer asked how her mission would change as she goes from honoring one person to now honoring 49:

We just welcome those families into our family.  And we just have to move forward and find a way to keep their hearts beating and keep our spirit alive.  And we’re not going to let someone take this away from us. … I have to go back to that club. 

After the interview, Matt Lauer added that she told him, “It’s important never to let hate win.” 

Police arrested a man in Brooklyn for assaulting a bouncer at a gay bar and threatening to “come back Orlando-style.” 

At about 11:15 p.m. Monday night, Justin Rice, 40 was escorted out of the Happy Fun Hideaway, a gay bar Bushwick, after getting in a loud argument with his girlfriend.  During the scuffle, Rice shouted, “I’m going to shoot this place up and get my 50 just like Orlando, Florida,” according to the police report. “ I’m going to come back Orlando-style!” 

“F–k you fa—ts, f–k that fa—t, I’ll kill you f—-ts,” he yelled while hurling a metal bucket filled with sand at the 34-year-old bouncer.  The bucket hit a glancing blow, and the bouncer scuffled with Rice.  The bouncer was able to hold Rice until police arrived.  Rice was charged with aggravated harassment and attempted assault.  More charges were added, including making a terrorist threat and menacing as a hate crime.  Bail has been set for $10,000.  He is scheduled to appear in court on Friday. 

A CBS News Poll out today shows that a majority of Americans strongly disapprove of Donald Trump’s responses to the massacre at Orlando’s Pulse gay night club.  Americans are fairly evenly split when it comes to Secretary Hillary Clinton’s response. 

Clinton

Trump

Approve

36%

25%

Disapprove

34%

52%

Don’t Know

30%

24%

The report adds: “Most Democrats (62%) approve of Clinton’s response, while just half of Republicans (50%) approve of Trump’s.  More independents are critical of Trump’s response than Clinton’s.” 

Americans have also soundly rejected Trump’s call to ban Muslims from entering the U.S.:

Total

Reps

Dems

Inds

Yes, should ban

31%

56%

14%

30%

No, should not ban

62%

37%

79%

62%

Americans across the board largely hold that the attack was both an act of terrorism as well as a hate crime (57%).  That response was similar for Republicans (65%), Democrats (53%) and Independents (56%).  A larger minority of Republicans say it was “mostly” terrorism” (22%) than Americans as a whole (14%), while a somewhat larger majority of Democrats say it was “mostly a hate crime” (37%) than Americans as a whole (25%). 

The margin of error for the entire group is ±4%.  The margin of error for the Republican, Democratic, and Independent subgroups will be greater according to their respective samples sizes. 

The East Orlando Postreported that other gay bars in the Orlando area found that Omar Mateen had been using social media to gain information prior to Sunday’s attack at Pulse.  Now the Orlando Sentinel said that he had been surveilling Pulse directly:

At least four regular customers at the gay Orlando nightclub where a gunman killed 49 people Sunday morning said today that they believe they had seen the killer, Omar Mateen, there before. 

“Sometimes he would go over in the corner and sit and drink by himself, and other times he would get so drunk he was loud and belligerent,” said Ty Smith, who also uses the name Aries. 

He saw Mateen at the club at least a dozen times, he told the Orlando Sentinel. 

“We didn’t really talk to him a lot, but I remember him saying things about his dad at times,” Smith said. “ He told us he had a wife and child. 

Sitora Yusufiy, 27 and the ex-wife of Pulse night club shooter Omar Mateen, has come forward to described her two-year abusive marriage to Mateen.  She said that when they first met on Myspace in 2008, and married after a short engagement, ““He was a normal guy, joking, laughing, you know, like having fun.” 

Mateen was religious but not radical.  Born in New York, Mateen came from an Afghan family but was “Americanized,” Yusufiy said.  Yusufiy, who now lives in Colorado, is Uzbekistani but had lived in the United States for nearly a decade before the marriage. 

Yusufiy said Mateen desperately wanted to be a policeman and hung out with a lot of cops, often going to the shooting range with them. 

But just a few weeks into the marriage, Yusufiy said, Mateen started showing another side, one of anger and control.  She said Mateen made her get a job and then took the money she made. 

“It was just his personal form on control.  He wanted to control me and do whatever he [could] to keep me hostage,” she said. 

When he was angry, he would sometimes rant about homosexuals, Yusufiy said. 

“In those moments of emotional instability, he would express his anger towards [a] certain culture, homosexuality, because in Islamic culture, it is not really tolerated, homosexuality.  And I know at the time he was trying to get his life straight and follow his faith,” she said. 

One former co-worker at the Port St. Lucie security firm that employed Matteen confirmed to the New York Times Mateen’s bigotry and erratic behavior:

According to Mr. Gilroy, who said that he had repeatedly complained to G4S, the security company that employed them, Mr. Mateen was a loud, profane presence who was prone to using racial, ethnic and sexual slurs. 

Mr. Gilroy, a former police officer in Fort Pierce, described Mr. Mateen as a man who had “issues and just constant anger.” 

“He was just agitated about everything, always shaken, always agitated, always mad,” said Mr. Gilroy, who said his relationship with Mr. Mateen became increasingly tense, with Mr. Mateen badgering him with text messages 20 or 30 times a day. 

According to the FBI, Mateen had, at various times, expressed admiration for Hezbollah, Al-Qaeda, and, just before the attack, ISIS.  Observers note the confusing contradictions in those endorsements: all three groups are bitter enemies of each other.  According to the Guardian:

The full extent of Mateen’s motivations may have been complex and less clear than immediately apparent, though.  A knowledgeable US official told the Guardian that while the federal investigation was in the earliest stages, an initial hypothesis regarding the shooter’s motive leaned closer to a hate crime than an act of terrorism. 

“The idea of it being terrorism is not off the table, but it’s probably not the principal approach,” said the official, who would not be identified by name or agency in discussing a fast-moving investigation. “ There are other reasons to believe it was motivated toward a very specific kind of community, obviously.” 

That investigation was still determining if the shooting was “terrorism or a massive, massive hate crime”, the official said.  The official emphasized that all hypotheses were preliminary. 

I’m seeing the same trend here in the states, and I’ll have much, much more to say about this.  But here’s Owen Jones walking out of a Sky News panel discussion over the host’s insistence on downplaying the homophobia aspect to yesterday’s mass shooting. 

“The issue is I will not have people, as a gay man, appropriating — the people who never speak about gay rights except when this happens if there are Muslims involved.  Then they’s jump on the bandwagon and they’ll spam as much bile as they want.  And I’m proud to live in a city, one the the greatest cities on the face of the earth whose mayor is a Muslim.  He votes for equal rights including equal marriage in defiance of lots of other people and death threats.” 

Host Mark Longhurst then brought up the arrest in L.A. of James Wesley Howell who was reportedly preparing to attack the Gay Pride celebration there.  He only acknowledged that Howell was not Muslim “as far as we know,” and asked “whether there is, as you say, a hate crime or whether something is being done in the name of religion.”  As if there was a difference. 

Jones responded: “Can we just be clear, because you say its lunatics and all the rest of it.  We’ve got to be clear.  If he went into a synagogue and killed innocent Jewish people… People have done that, disgusting anti-Semitic terrorists, we will call it out for what it is.  This person is a homophobic terrorist, whatever else he is.  Presumably he’s got some twisted view of Islamic fundamentalism to justify his… even though he’s a knuckle-dragging thug and a get.  At the end of the day this is a homophobic hate crime as well as terrorism.  It as be called out because I have to say on Sky News and lots of other news, there’s not been many LGBT voices I’ve personally heard myself.  And people have to understand as LGBT people watching this and elsewhere, they look at something like this and it is one of the worst atrocities committed against LGBT people in the Western world for generations.” 

Longhurst continued to insist that the attack was carried out against human beings. “ You cannot say this is a worse attack than what happened in Paris.”  It was, he said, a crime Host Mark Longhurst interjected and said the crime had been carried out against “human beings” who were “ trying to enjoy themselves, whatever their sexuality.” 

“What are you talking about?”  Jones exclaimed. “ I’m trying to understand the point you’re making.  It was a deliberate attack on LGBT people in an LGBT venue.  It was a homophobic terrorist attack.  Do you understand that?  It’s not some abstract… just kind of he picked a random club out of nowhere.  He picked a club because it was full of people he regarded as evil.  That’s why he picked the club.” 

Co-panelist Julia Hartley-Brewer joined the minimization by suggested that the killer “might have equally horrified by me as a gobby woman”. 

“Well fuck!,”  Jones replied. “ Why would you try to deflect?” 

“I’m sorry, I just find this the most astonishing thing I’ve ever been involved in on television,” he continued. “ If he’d walked into a synagogue and massacred dozens of Jewish people, you wouldn’t be saying what you’re saying now.  You’d be saying it was an anti-Semitic attack.  This was a deliberate attack on LGBT people.  It was a deliberate attack on the LGBT community.  It’s bizarre…”

As the panel continued to divert and dissemble, Jones clearly withdrew himself form the discussion.  Longhurst then brought up Peter Tachell’s gay rights group Stonewall to introduce the LGBT element on Longhursts’ chosen terms (“Is the danger… that you focus on one particular area and not the whole threat to our modern way of life?”). “ I’ve had enough of this,” Jones said as he took off his microphone and walked off the set. 

Stanley Almodovar III, 23 years old.  A pharmacy tech, originally from Massachusetts. “ Always bubbly and super down to earth and such a sweet guy.” 

Luis Omar Ocasio-Capo, 20 years old.  Friends called him “Omar.”  One aunt says he now “dances freely in heaven.” 

Juan Ramon Guerrero, 22 years old (left).  His boyfriend, Drew Leinonen, was also at the night club.  Late last night, his mother confirmed that he had died.  Drew had established a Gay-Straight Alliance in his high school. 

Eric Ivan Ortiz-Rivera, 36 years old.  Originally from Puerto Rico, he had been married to his husband for about a year. 

Peter Ommy Gonzalez-Cruz, 22 years old.  Originally from New Jersey. “ R.I.P. Peter Ommy.  A great person with a beautiful smile.” 

Luis S. Vielma, 22 years old.  A student at Seminole State College.  Worked the “Harry Potter and the Forbidden Journey” ride at Universal Orlando Resort. 

Kimberly”KJ” Morris, 37 years old, a bouncer at Pulse.  Friends remembered her dancing and her smile. 

Eddie Jamoldroy Justice, 30 years old. “ Mommy I love you,” he texted to his mother at 2:06 a.m. “In club they shooting.” 

As the world’s attention was fixed on the terrible massacre at the Pulse night club in Orlando, Santa Monica police narrowly averted another massacre at Los Angeles Pride, which took place today.  That suspect has been identified as James Wesley Howell, 20, of Jeffersonville, Indiana. 

Police responded to a “suspicious activity” call at about 5:00 a.m. to the 17oo block of 11th St. after someone called 911 about a man knocking on resident’s door and windows. 

When officers arrived, they found Howell siting in his white Acura with Indiana tags.  Inside the car, police discovered a virtual armory: three rifles — one of them identified simply as an “assault rifle” — loaded clips, a camouflage outfit, security badge, and five pounds of mixed tannerite, “capable of forming an improvised explosive device. ” 

The bomb squad was called in to secure the car and Howell was arrested.  Santa Monica Chief of Police Jaqueline Seabrooks tweeted that Howell told the police officer during the arrest “of wanting to harm Gay Pride event” during his arrest. 

Howell is being held on a $500,000 bond at the Santa Monica jail.  Police tightened security for today’s LA Pride parade.  No incidents have been reported. 

The Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) claimed responsibility Sunday for a deadly nightclub shooting in Orlando, Fla., that left 50 dead and 53 injured. “ The attack that targeted a nightclub for homosexuals in Orlando, Florida and that left more than 100 dead and wounded was carried out by an Islamic State fighter,” ISIS said in a statement.  The organization offered no proof for the attacks. 

ISIS’ claim of responsibility came several hours after news of the attack hit the news.  It’s important to remember that authorities have not established a connection between the Orlando shooter Omar Mateen and ISIS.  Friends, family, and an ex-wife all say he was not particularly religious.  Co-workers at the security company he worked for called the FBI in 2013 after he made comments about terrorist connections, but the FBI investigation found no basis for concern.  The FBI investigated in 2014 over potential ties with someone who became an Al-Quida suicide bomber in Syria.  That investigation was inconclusive. 

The FBI did put him on a watch list, but that alone was not enough to prevent Mateen to purchase an AR-15.  Congress refused to close that loophole last December.  ATF says that Mateen legally purchased his weapons in the last week.  Shortly before attacking Pulse, Mateen called 911 and pledged his allegiance to ISIS.  According to NBC News:

Investigators are trying to determine whether religious extremism motivated the attack and piece together what exactly set off Mateen, who lived less than two hours south of Orlando in Port St. Lucie and worked as a security guard. 

Mateen didn’t appear to have any direct ties with ISIS, sources told NBCNews, although he was a follower of ISIS propaganda and referenced the Tsarnaev brothers, who carried out the Boston Marathon bombings in 2013, at the scene of the shooting. 

Based on what we know so far, the most immediate reason why Mateen chose this particular target and these particular people appears to be what Mateen saw in Miami:

Because of his name and heritage, there were immediate questions about Mateen’s possible ties to Islamic fundamentalism.  But his father told NBC News that his son was affected by a recent incident involving two men showing each other affection. 

“We were in Downtown Miami, Bayside, people were playing music.  And he saw two men kissing each other in front of his wife and kid and he got very angry,” Mateen’s father, Mir Seddique, told NBC News on Sunday. “ They were kissing each other and touching each other and he said, ‘Look at that.  In front of my son they are doing that.’  And then we were in the men’s bathroom and men were kissing each other.” 

“We are saying we are apologizing for the whole incident,” Seddique said. “ We weren’t aware of any action he is taking.  We are in shock like the whole country.” 

“He was not a stable person,” said the ex-wife, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because she feared for her safety in the wake of the mass shooting. “ He beat me.  He would just come home and start beating me up because the laundry wasn’t finished or something like that.” 

…“He seemed like a normal human being,” she said, adding that when they were married he wasn’t very religious and often worked out at the gym.  She said in the few months they were married he gave no signs of having fallen under the sway of radical Islam.  She said he owned a small-caliber handgun. 

There’s an arbitrary FDA ban on blood donations for gay men who have had sex in the past year.  It appears that the ban has been lifted, at least temporarily in Orlando.  U.S. Representative Alan Grayson (D-FL) released this statement at 12:30 am EST Sunday:

“Due to the critical need for blood donations in Orlando, ALL blood donations will be accepted and screened.  Nobody will be turned away because of their sexual orientation.  O Positive and O Negative blood types are needed most urgently.  Please make appointments to donate throughout the week as there will be a continued need.” 

HIV Plus magazine noticed earlier that local hospitals appear to be accepting blood from all comers. 

Update: Others are suggesting that the blood banks are accepting donations, but are probably using the application forms to screen out those who answer the gay-and-had-sex question to dispose of that donation. 

Here is a transcript of President Barack Obama’s remarks on today’s massacre:

Today, as Americans, we grieve the brutal murder — a horrific massacre — of dozens of innocent people.  We pray for their families, who are grasping for answers with broken hearts.  We stand with the people of Orlando, who have endured a terrible attack on their city.  Although it’s still early in the investigation, we know enough to say that this was an act of terror and an act of hate.  And as Americans, we are united in grief, in outrage, and in resolve to defend our people. 

I just finished a meeting with FBI Director Comey and my homeland security and national security advisors.  The FBI is on the scene and leading the investigation, in partnership with local law enforcement.  I’ve directed that the full resources of the federal government be made available for this investigation. 

We are still learning all the facts.  This is an open investigation.  We’ve reached no definitive judgment on the precise motivations of the killer.  The FBI is appropriately investigating this as an act of terrorism.  And I’ve directed that we must spare no effort to determine what — if any — inspiration or association this killer may have had with terrorist groups.  What is clear is that he was a person filled with hatred.  Over the coming days, we’ll uncover why and how this happened, and we will go wherever the facts lead us. 

This morning I spoke with my good friend, Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer, and I conveyed the condolences of the entire American people.  This could have been any one of our communities.  So I told Mayor Dyer that whatever help he and the people of Orlando need — they are going to get it.  As a country, we will be there for the people of Orlando today, tomorrow and for all the days to come. 

We also express our profound gratitude to all the police and first responders who rushed into harm’s way.  Their courage and professionalism saved lives, and kept the carnage from being even worse.  It’s the kind of sacrifice that our law enforcement professionals make every single day for all of us, and we can never thank them enough. 

This is an especially heartbreaking day for all our friends — our fellow Americans — who are lesbian, gay, bisexual or transgender.  The shooter targeted a nightclub where people came together to be with friends, to dance and to sing, and to live.  The place where they were attacked is more than a nightclub — it is a place of solidarity and empowerment where people have come together to raise awareness, to speak their minds, and to advocate for their civil rights. 

So this is a sobering reminder that attacks on any American — regardless of race, ethnicity, religion or sexual orientation — is an attack on all of us and on the fundamental values of equality and dignity that define us as a country.  And no act of hate or terror will ever change who we are or the values that make us Americans. 

Today marks the most deadly shooting in American history.  The shooter was apparently armed with a handgun and a powerful assault rifle.  This massacre is therefore a further reminder of how easy it is for someone to get their hands on a weapon that lets them shoot people in a school, or in a house of worship, or a movie theater, or in a nightclub.  And we have to decide if that’s the kind of country we want to be.  And to actively do nothing is a decision as well. 

In the coming hours and days, we’ll learn about the victims of this tragedy.  Their names.  Their faces.  Who they were.  The joy that they brought to families and to friends, and the difference that they made in this world.  Say a prayer for them and say a prayer for their families — that God give them the strength to bear the unbearable.  And that He give us all the strength to be there for them, and the strength and courage to change.  We need to demonstrate that we are defined more — as a country — by the way they lived their lives than by the hate of the man who took them from us. 

As we go together, we will draw inspiration from heroic and selfless acts — friends who helped friends, took care of each other and saved lives.  In the face of hate and violence, we will love one another.  We will not give in to fear or turn against each other.  Instead, we will stand united, as Americans, to protect our people, and defend our nation, and to take action against those who threaten us. 

May God bless the Americans we lost this morning.  May He comfort their families.  May God continue to watch over this country that we love.  Thank you. 

In this original BTB Investigation, we unveil the tragic story of Kirk Murphy, a four-year-old boy who was treated for “cross-gender disturbance” in 1970 by a young grad student by the name of George Rekers.  This story is a stark reminder that there are severe and damaging consequences when therapists try to ensure that boys will be boys. 

When we first reported on three American anti-gay activists traveling to Kampala for a three-day conference, we had no idea that it would be the first report of a long string of events leading to a proposal to institute the death penalty for LGBT people.  But that is exactly what happened.  In this report, we review our collection of more than 500 posts to tell the story of one nation’s embrace of hatred toward gay people.  This report will be updated continuously as events continue to unfold.  Check here for the latest updates. 

In 2005, the Southern Poverty Law Center wrote that “[Paul] Cameron’s ‘science’ echoes Nazi Germany.”  What the SPLC didn”t know was Cameron doesn’t just “echo” Nazi Germany.  He quoted extensively from one of the Final Solution’s architects.  This puts his fascination with quarantines, mandatory tattoos, and extermination being a “plausible idea” in a whole new and deeply disturbing light. 

From the Inside: Focus on the Family’s “Love Won Out”

On February 10, I attended an all-day “Love Won Out” ex-gay conference in Phoenix, put on by Focus on the Family and Exodus International.  In this series of reports, I talk about what I learned there: the people who go to these conferences, the things that they hear, and what this all means for them, their families and for the rest of us. 

Using the same research methods employed by most anti-gay political pressure groups, we examine the statistics and the case studies that dispel many of the myths about heterosexuality.  Download your copy today! 

Anti-gay activists often charge that gay men and women pose a threat to children.  In this report, we explore the supposed connection between homosexuality and child sexual abuse, the conclusions reached by the most knowledgeable professionals in the field, and how anti-gay activists continue to ignore their findings.  This has tremendous consequences, not just for gay men and women, but more importantly for the safety of all our children. 

Anti-gay activists often cite the “Dutch Study” to claim that gay unions last only about 1½ years and that the these men have an average of eight additional partners per year outside of their steady relationship.  In this report, we will take you step by step into the study to see whether the claims are true. 

Tony Perkins’ Family Research Council submitted an Amicus Brief to the Maryland Court of Appeals as that court prepared to consider the issue of gay marriage.  We examine just one small section of that brief to reveal the junk science and fraudulent claims of the Family “Research” Council. 

The FBI’s annual Hate Crime Statistics aren’t as complete as they ought to be, and their report for 2004 was no exception.  In fact, their most recent report has quite a few glaring holes.  Holes big enough for Daniel Fetty to fall through.