A male gunman who claimed to be a woman has shot dead two family members and injured three others before killing himself at a high school hockey game in the US state of Rhode Island.
Robert Dorgan, 56, who called himself Roberta, used the surname Esposito and regularly posted about “transgenderism” on social media, opened fire at the Dennis M Lynch Arena ice rink in Pawtucket on Monday afternoon.
Pawtucket Police Chief Tina Goncalves said the shooting appeared to stem from a family dispute, and that Dorgan started shooting at about 2.30pm while wearing a white beanie, and that a “good Samaritan stepped in and interjected in the scene, and that’s probably what led to a swift end of this tragic event”.
A woman at the scene told WCVB “my father was the shooter”.
“He shot my family, and he’s dead now … he has mental health issues,” she said, and added that he was “very sick”.
Court documents obtained by WPRI show that Dorgan reported his father-in-law to police in 2020 for allegedly threatening him after he underwent so-called gender reassignment surgery.
Dorgan alleged that his father-in-law said he would “have him murdered by an Asian street gang if he did not move out of the residence” in North Providence, and told him “there’s no goddam [sic] way a tranny is going to stay in my house”.
The father-in-law was hit with intimidation of witnesses and victims of crimes and obstruction of the judicial system charges, but they were later dropped by prosecutors.
Dorgan’s wife Rhonda Dorgan filed for divorce at about the same time, initially writing “gender reassignment surgery, narcissistic + personality disorder traits” before crossing them out and leaving “irreconcilable differences which have caused the immediate breakdown of the marriage”.
The gunman also accused his mother of assaulting him in 2020, resulting in her being charged with simple assault and battery and disorderly conduct, but that case also ended up being dismissed.
Dorgan’s X account shows that just two days before the attack he responded to a comment calling a “transgender woman” a man by writing “keep bashing us. but do not wonder why we Go BERSERK”.
The shooting comes after a “transgender” gunman killed eight people, including six young children, in the small town of Tumbler Ridge, Canada, earlier this month.
