The Backstreet Café is a lot like any other bar in Roanoke, a sleepy little city of not quite 100,000 at the southern end of Virginia's Shenandoah Valley. It has a pool table and a postage stamp of a dance floor. It is a social oasis for the regulars, who in this case happen to be gay and lesbian.
Sept. 22 was a typical Friday night, about 50 people were there when a stranger walked in about 11:30 and ordered a draft beer. It must have been the hug of greeting that John Collins, 39, gave his good friend Danny Lee Overstreet, 43, that set the stranger off.
"He stood up as I was letting go of the hug," Collins told The Washington Post, "and he was turning and he was also reaching into his black trench coat. I saw the gun come out of his pocket."
BAM-BAM-BAM. Eight times the stranger pulled the trigger of the 9mm automatic pistol, spraying the room with lead. It was over almost as soon as it began. The stranger turned and walked out the door. He was arrested two blocks away, having already disposed of the gun so as not to hurt the police.
Overstreet lay on the floor, blood spurting from his chest. He would die within minutes. Collins had a bullet in his gut. Iris Page Webb, 41, was in critical condition after being shot in the neck. And three other men and women had bullet wounds that ranged from serious to minor.
Overstreet's body was barely cool before the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force ( NGLTF ) had condemned the attack and in the same breath "called on Congress to stop ignoring crimes of violence and intimidation against the nation's gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender population" and pass federal hate-crimes legislation.
Shirley Lesser, executive director of Virginians for Justice, issued a news release that said, "This hate crime was directed against people who were in the wrong place at the wrong time, simply because they were perceived to be gay." She said the answer to "this atrocity" is to add sexual orientation to the state hate crimes statutes.
THE STRANGER
The gunman's name was Ronald Edward Gay. In the days that followed a picture quickly emerged of a man whose animus towards gays was but a part, and perhaps only a small part, of troubles that went far deeper.
Gay did not fit the typical profile of those who commit hate crimes. Yes, he was a white male, but at 53 he was at least twice as old as the profile would predict. Nor were there apparent signs of insecurity over his own sexual orientation, though five failed marriages may give anyone pause.
Gay was a Vietnam veteran. He had gathered the bloody remnants of seven GI buddies blown to bits when their truck hit a land mine. He suffered from post-traumatic stress syndrome, lived on disability retirement, drank heavily, and was on medication—the anti-depressant Prozac and the anti-anxiety drug Clonipin.
Or perhaps he was off of those drugs having encountered problems renewing the prescription with the local Veterans Administration center after moving to Virginia from Florida about a year ago. "When they did not give him his medication ... they were creating a time bomb," Gay's younger brother William told the Roanoke Times in a telephone interview from his home in the Canadian province of Nova Scotia.
That Friday night Ronald Edward Gay asked an employee of the bar Corned Beef & Co. "where the gay bar was, because he wanted to waste some gay people," said police spokeswoman Shelly Alley. The employee, thinking Gay was joking, gave him the address of the Backstreet Café, but also called the police, who responded quickly and were nearby to make the arrest. The entire series of events occurred in less than an hour.
Police Lt. William Althoff said that Gay "admits to shooting people to get rid of 'faggots.'" He has long resented comments people made about his last name. Police videotaped the confession.
Gay is being held in the Roanoke City Jail, without bond, on a charge of murder. Additional charges are likely to be filed before he goes before a grand jury for indictment Oct. 2. Whether he will be found mentally competent to stand trial is an open question.
REACTIONS
As news of the tragedy stuns communities throughout Virginia and across the country, the city of San Francisco paid its respects by lowering the rainbow flag hanging over the Castro to half staff on Sunday. In the past, the flag was lowered after the death of Matthew Shepard and others who have been murdered because they are gay.
Roanoke reacted to the tragedy by pulling together as only a small community can. The police and paramedics were compassionate and professional. The following afternoon elected officials held a news conference condemning the violence. And prosecutors are treating it with the utmost seriousness.
On Saturday near sundown, people gathered in front of the Backstreet Café. They prayed for the dead Danny Overstreet and for recovery of the six wounded in the shooting.
While some renewed their call for hate-crimes legislation, others saw little that a law could have done to prevent this senseless act of violence. They took solace in the way the community of Roanoke had reacted, and they began a fund to help cover the medical expenses of those who were shot. The healing had begun.
CHICAGO MARCH
Sam Garrison, a longtime gay activist in Roanoke, who has been the leader in the fight against Virginia's sodomy laws, and also an organizer on the response to the attack, is going to be the keynote speaker at the Sat., Oct. 7 Chicago Anti-Bashing Network March Against Anti-Gay Hate. The event starts 8 p.m., Halsted and Roscoe, call ( 773 ) 878-4781.
