Venture-N, a Tucson safe space for LGBTQIA+, shattered by gunfire

Since it opened in 1991, Venture-N had been a safe space for the LGBTQIA+ community.

“It’s one of the few places where we can gather without fear, where our friendships and chosen families have grown, where we’ve laughed, danced, celebrated, and healed,” Tucsonan Larry Jensen posted on Facebook Monday afternoon as news unfolded of the early morning shooting deaths of two men in the bar’s parking lot, which Tucson police are investigating as a hate crime.

“These spaces matter because they are among the only places where we are not treated as political targets. And that’s where the pain sharpens," Jensen said. 

Early Monday morning, Venture-N at 1239 N. Sixth Ave. “became the most unsafe place for an LGBTQ person because of one person with a gun who showed up there, looking to create chaos,” said Scott Blades, the co-founder and former longtime executive director of the nonprofit Tucson Interfaith HIV/AIDS Network.

“It's been a fear in this anti-LGBTQ-focused environment over the last 10 years,” he said. “When we were looking at planning public events of a large scale, there was a concern about 'do we need to have security?' It's something that we've always thought of when we're doing those events, but this was not a big event. This was just some folks gathering for a night out and wanting to have some fun.”

A gunman killed Vincent Anthony Siqueiros, 42, and Cameron Davis Capara, 33, in the parking lot of the Venture-N, a gay bar in the 1200 block of North Sixth Avenue, north of East Speedway, at about 12:30 a.m. Monday.

Gunman Ousman Ceesay, 44, also died in the apparent murder-suicide. Ceesay carried a note with several LGBTQIA+ associated businesses written on it, police said.

Mary O’Donoghue, executive director of Southern Arizona Senior Pride, called the shooting heartbreaking and said that under the current political climate, “the fears and the concerns for safety are very present, and this shooting identifies that.”

“There's a sense of being in a safe bubble, in a way, in Tucson because we do have the community leaders and we have faith partners, community partners, and we have very strong allies in the work that we do,” O’Donoghue said. “So when this happens, it's the realization of how fragile that sense of safety is, and just the whole rippling effect.”

That is even more evident with the older gay population that O’Donoghue’s organization serves.

“Older LGBTQ folks have a history of having experienced this level of uncertainty, of fear, of needing to maybe watch themselves, be less visible, and it certainly triggers all of that lived experience,” she said. “It will now have a ramification about ensuring safety whenever we're gathering, and what does that look like now for us.”

Blades said the shooting brought up flashes of the 2016 Pulse nightclub mass shooting in Orlando, Florida, that claimed 49 lives and, closer to home, the 1976 murder of Richard Heakin at Tucson's old Stonewall Tavern in June 1976 by four teenagers. Heakin’s killers were tried as juveniles and sentenced to probation, which outraged the community and led the city to include sexual orientation in its anti-discrimination laws.

Until Monday, there had not been any attacks specifically targeting gays since Heakin’s murder, Blades said.

“It's just horrible that that's where we are now as a society,” he said. “It's just a more violent society than it used to be, and that's for everybody. But you know there are some subgroups that are being specifically targeted, and that's come home to Tucson in a devastating and horrific way that cost the lives of two people.”

O’Donoghue said the community will do what it always does in times of tragedy and uncertainty.

“The community will lock arms, be strengthened, and dig into our whole history and in our nature to be resilient as a community,” she said. “And our allies show up en force, and that also happens in these really unimaginable and devastating situations. We're not alone as a community. We have … allies. This is a very strong and affirming community in which to live, so we know that everybody will be part of ensuring that the LGBTQ community feels safer and take a role in safeguarding that.”

Police Chief Monica Prieto said police will increase patrols around LGBTQIA+ establishments.

A community vigil being organized by Tucson Queer Stories, Tihan, Tucson Senior Pride, Southern Arizona AIDS Project and other organizations will take place at 6:30 p.m. Wednesday at the Philip Walsted Memorial at Catalina Park and Splash Pad, 941 N. Fourth Ave.

Walsted, a 24-year-old gay man, was beaten to death in the course of a robbery in June 2002.