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A five-times-maried-and-divorced Vietnam vet with post-traumatic stress disorder, a drinking problem, and a penchant for violence, Ronald Gay began hearing taunts about his name in middle school, where he was called “faggot” by his classmates. Ronald Gay, according to family and friends, was a troubled and troublesome as Overstreet was warm and friendly. They should have had little in common, the killer and his victim. And that’s what set him on a collision course with Ronald Gay.
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He performed in drag occasionally, as a character named “Iwanna.” And he regularly visited the Backstreet Cafe, not to drink, but to visit with friends and socialize. And while he wasn’t politically active, he was unashamedly open about who he was an unabashedly flamboyant at times. At work, as an operator for Verizon, he was known for his fabulous potato salad, his pink cubicle, and his timely advice to co-workers who were due for another visit to the salon (advice they no doubt trusted because Overstreet was a trained beautician). By all accounts, Overstreet was a well-loved member of his family and community. They couldn’t have been more different, actually. I thought about the Roanoke bar shootings and Danny Overstreet’s death when I heard the news about Richard Jewell’s death and remembered the bombing of the Otherside Lounge in Atlanta, GA, because both reminded me of how we’re often not safe in our own community spaces, and are targets for attack simply for being in a place that’s known to “cater to homosexuals.” But the more I read, the more I was struck by what Danny Overstreet and Ronald Gay had in common. Technorati Tags: anti-gay violence, crime, current events, gay bashing, homophobia, politics They, after all, were no this targets that evening. He quietly surrendered, and later told police that he’d thrown his gun into a garbage can (and gave them the location) because he didn’t want to harm any police officers when he was inevitably picked up. Police stopped Ronald Gay around midnight, two blocks away from the bar. By then Danny Overstreet was dead, and six others wounded. The shooting at the Backstreet Cafe, a gay bar in downtown Roanoke, was called in to police at 11:51 p.m. Police arrived at Corned Bee & Co by 11:39 p.m., and by 11:46 p.m. Bar for directions to a gay bar, flashed his gun, and declared his intentions, it was between 11:00 p.m. When Ronald Gay stopped to ask an employee at the Corned Bee & Co. That’s the amount of time that passed between the moment police arrived to take a report from a bar employee in Roanoke, VA, who called 911 - after a man asked for directions to a gay bar, flashed his gun, and said he was “wasting faggots” that night - and the the moment when the shooting at the Backstreet Cafe was called in to police.