Tucson gunman's cousin says he never heard anti-gay sentiments from him

"We don’t talk about those things here, because you hardly see it," Muhammad Sylva, 44, told the Arizona Daily Star Wednesday. He said he and his cousin Ceesay grew up in the same household in the West African nation of The Gambia, and they remained close after Ceesay moved to the U.S. around 2010.

The topic of homosexuality, or opposition to it, never came up with Ceesay when they were young, nor in the years after Ceesay moved to the U.S. to attend college, said Sylva, in a Wednesday phone call from The Gambia, where Ceesay's family still lives.

"Ousman doesn't have the time to talk about hating people. Throughout our conversations, through the 17 years he spent in the U.S., he doesn't talk about that," Sylva said.

Tucson police say Ceesay was carrying a list of LGBTQIA+ associated businesses at the time he fatally shot Vincent Anthony Siqueiros, 42, and Cameron Davis Capara, 33, in the parking lot of Venture-N, a long-standing gay bar on North Sixth Avenue.

Police are investigating the Aug. 31 shooting as a hate crime. A search warrant served on Ceesay's home Monday afternoon turned up a note indicating "hate toward the LGBTQIA+ community," Tucson police said. Police said Tuesday that Ceesay had no prior connection to the victims, who died at the scene early Monday morning. Ceesay died later at the hospital, after also shooting himself, police say.

Due to the shame associated with homosexuality in The Gambia, gay people hide their sexuality, so it's unusual to hear much about the topic, Sylva said. 

"Here, we have two religions. We have Christians and we have Muslims living here," Sylva said. "Both faiths here don’t accept homosexuality. So if you're doing it here, you hide it. ... It's not something we talk about."

Ceesay was a practicing Muslim who often prayed five times a day and participated in fasts, Sylva said. But Ceesay's faith was not "extreme," he said. 

"He was living an ordinary life," Sylva said of his cousin. Their family in The Gambia includes both Christians and Muslims, said Sylva, who said his father and his best friend are Christians.

Homosexuality is criminalized in The Gambia, with the law carrying a maximum sentence of life in prison, according to London-based Human Dignity Trust, a rights group that uses strategic litigation to challenge laws that persecute people on the basis of their sexuality.

"Aggravated homosexuality" has been illegal since a 2014 amendment to The Gambia's criminal code, the group said. Prior to that, the Criminal Code 1934 already criminalized "acts of carnal knowledge against the order of nature" and "gross indecency."

LGBT people in The Gambia also face "strong societal discrimination," according to Human Dignity Trust. "There is substantial evidence of the law being enforced, if less so in recent years, with LGBT people being subject to arbitrary arrest and torture in detention," the group said.

'Can't comprehend it'

Ceesay's family is struggling to reconcile their memories of Ceesay with news reports on the Tucson shooting, the cousin told the Star.

"I just can't comprehend it," Sylva said. "One thing I know about my cousin is he was never a violent person."

Sylva said he'd always been close with Ceesay. They grew up playing soccer, listening to their grandmother's bedtime stories and sleeping in the same bed for years as kids, he said.

Sylva said he last spoke with Ceesay by phone at the end of July. Ceesay did not seem upset, but said he had separated from his wife and was working as an Uber driver while looking for a full-time job, Sylva said. Ceesay gave no indication he planned to move or travel to Arizona, Sylva said.

Police believe Ceesay had only been in Tucson for a short period before the Aug. 31 shooting. Prior to arriving in Tucson, Ceesay had lived in Oklahoma since at least 2011, records show.

Sylva said Ceesay arrived in the U.S. about 17 years ago, on a student visa, to attend college in Oklahoma. Ceesay had saved up money from his banking job in The Gambia to pay for his travels, Sylva said.

Ceesay eventually became a naturalized U.S. citizen, but Sylva did not know if Ceesay gained citizenship through his 2012 marriage to an Oklahoma woman. 

Sylva remembers the day Ceesay proudly sent him a video of his naturalization ceremony, with U.S. President Donald Trump speaking on a large screen in a recorded message for new citizens. While Sylva doesn't remember what year that was, it was during Trump's first term in office.

"He was very happy," Sylva said of his cousin.

The Star reported Wednesday that Ceesay and his wife had experienced financial problems and filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in 2018. In mid-2025, the couple's then-landlord in Oklahoma City moved to evict them after they accumulated more than $1,000 in unpaid rent, court records show.

But Sylva said, "He never mentioned to me that he was struggling."

In their last conversation in late July, Sylva said he and Ceesay exchanged updates on their families in The Gambia and reminisced.

"We talked about how everything is expensive here (in The Gambia), everybody is struggling, everything is getting costly," Sylva said. "We laughed about old friends and we shared some of our childhood memories. We laugh a lot."