The maximum sentence for the crime is 10 years in prison and a $250,000 fine. Until the shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando in 2016, which took the lives of 49 people, the worst mass killing in an LGBTQ+ space was an arson fire at the UpStairs Lounge in New Orleans in 1973. There were about 50 people in the bar at the time, but they were evacuated safely. The flames spread from the trash bin to an exterior wall of the building housing Queer/Bar.
He later told a random stranger he wanted to trap the people inside and injure them, the DOJ states. “I think it’s wrong that we have a bunch of queers in our society,” he told the officers. He was arrested minutes after starting the fire outside Queer/Bar on February 24, 2020, and he told police he set the blaze because the sign with the word “queer” made him angry. Kalvinn Garcia, 25, of Sedro-Wooley, Wash., admitted to anti-LGBTQ+ intent, according to a press release from the U.S. A Washington state man who objected to “a bunch of queers in our society” pleaded guilty Thursday to a hate crime after having set a fire two years ago in a trash bin next to a Seattle gay bar in hopes of harming the bar’s patrons.