The ex-husband of a transgender woman who is a client of the D.C. LGBTQ community services center Casa Ruby has threatened in a Facebook post to commit a ”massacre” at Casa Ruby similar to the Pulse nightclub shooting in Orlando, Fla., according to Casa Ruby founder and executive director Ruby Corado.
Corado told the Washington Blade she called police on Sunday, June 7, after the trans woman showed up at Casa Ruby seeking help, saying her ex-husband threatened to kill her if she continued to refuse his demands that they resume their relationship. Corado said the woman broke off the relationship and obtained a divorce after accusing the ex-husband of abuse.
Corado posted on her own Facebook page a screen shot of the ex-husband’s Facebook post, written in Spanish, making the threats. The screenshot posted by Corado has two photos of the ex-husband but doesn’t identify him by name.
“He said that he will commit a massacre like the Pulse in Florida,” Corado said in translating the ex-husband’s posting. “And the first people he would kill are the people at Casa Ruby.”
The ex-husband’s Facebook post also mentions the names of two D.C. nightclubs, Noa Noa and Adiente Club that host LGBTQ Latino events on certain nights.
Corado said the ex-husband, who appears in his 20s, knew the woman he married was transgender. She said the two are members of the Latino community and are U.S. citizens who speak English and Spanish. Corado said the trans woman, who is in her late 20s, spoke to D.C. police, who arrived at Casa Ruby on Sunday, to take a report. Corado said the she and the trans woman provided police with the ex-husband’s name and address in Herndon, Va., where he lives.
Corado said she is hopeful that police will obtain a warrant for the ex-husband’s arrest.
“I just wanted to bring awareness to this because people could end up dead,” Corado said.
The public version of a D.C. police incident report obtained by the Blade makes no mention of the trans woman or that the suspect was her ex-husband. All it says is that Respondent 1, meaning Corado or the trans woman, told police that Suspect 1, “made a threat via text message to execute a massacre Florida style at Casa Ruby.”
In response to an inquiry from the Blade, D.C. police spokesperson Karimah Bilal said the case remains under investigation but declined further comment.
Corado told the Blade the ex-husband sent the trans woman text messages making his threats against her and Casa Ruby in addition to the threats he made on his Facebook posting.
The Pulse gay nightclub massacre took place June 12, 2016, when 29-year-old Omar Mateen shot and killed 49 mostly Latino LGBTQ patrons at the club and wounded another 53 patrons who were attending one of the club’s Latino events. Orlando police shot and killed Mateen on the scene of the incident. Authorities later labeled the incident as a terrorist attack after learning Mateen intended to commit a massacre to protest the U.S. military intervention in Iraq and Syria.
