At Peace House, we stand with the traumatized communities of Colorado Springs, Colorado and Chesapeake, Virginia who have, this week, been devastating targets of gun violence and hate crime. We deplore the increasing attacks, which seem to come from a variety of motives, none of which are acceptable. The media rehearses the statistics regarding the general increase which has been on the rise since 2017. We understand that especially, in the Trans and LGBTQX communities, hate-killings have become part of an unbridled sense of entitlement to visit suffering upon ordinary human beings.
Peace House stands with all those who are being victimized or discriminated against due to race, color, creed, gender and sexual orientation.
We are now observing the second-year anniversary of the murder of Aidan Ellison, one in our own community who was shot point blank by Robert Paul Keegan, who thought he had the right to kill just because he did not like the late-night music that Aidan was playing in the parking of the Stafford Hotel on November 23rd, 2020. Both of them were staying in the hotel due to the Almeda Fire dislocation they had experienced.
We cannot afford to distance ourselves from hate crime and gun violence in our own communities. The choice to escalate differences to the point of murder or other violence is unacceptable and retrograde.
-Elizabeth V. Hallett, Executive Director
Peace House
