The Houston Times

Shooter Attacks Houston Gay Club, 29 Dead, Unknown Number Wounded

By Amy Brenner

 

IT WAS just another warm and muggy summer night in Houston. And on Harvey Milk Avenue, at the heart of the heart of the city’s gay scene, it was just one more laughter-filled evening of drinking and dancing and flirting and drag shows.

But at approximately 1:00 a.m., at the popular gay nightclub Pacific Coast, when the drinking and flirting and dancing were at their peak, it was not just another evening.

That was when suspect Richard “Rick” Michaelson, age twenty-five, walked out onto the dance floor, pulled out a 9mm Glock 17, and started firing into the crowd for a total of forty rounds, a nonstop explosion of death as Michaelson seemingly tried to kill everyone he could before finally turning the gun on himself.

By the time the shooting ended, twenty-nine people, including the shooter, were dead, and countless others wounded, some critically.

Police officer Lamar Travis, who arrived on the scene just moments after the shooting ended, described the scene:

“It looked like something in a war movie. There was blood and bodies everywhere… just everywhere. The wounded were holding on to those who had died. Those who weren’t wounded were trying to help those who were. They were so young…. I never want to have to witness a scene like that again, ever.”

The names of those wounded and killed are being withheld from the public until their families are notified.