The Hardest Part May Be the Answers Venture-N Survivors Will Never Get

There will be no trial for the man who shot and killed Vincent Anthony Siqueiros and Cameron Davis Capara. No prosecution. No sentence. And no chance for the friends and families of the two men to confront their killer or ask him why he targeted them.

The shooter, 44-year-old Ousman Ceesay, died after the Aug. 31 shooting at Venture-N after turning the gun on himself. Police say they found evidence that the attack was targeted and motivated by anti-LGBTQ+ hate. There was a list of other LGBTQ+-friendly businesses he had allegedly planned to visit. And investigators later found additional evidence of a hate-motivated attack when they searched his home.

So what does justice look like when there can be no accountability in court?

“You can’t get accountability from a corpse."
-Brandon Lee, a friend of Cameron Capara

For Tucson’s mourners, that answer is something they struggle with. Some say justice means strengthening the laws and policies they believe could prevent another attack. Others say it means building a community strong enough to protect its own. Still, others want the state and federal governments to confront the rhetoric, political divisions and lack of protections they say have helped create an environment where anti-LGBTQ+ violence can take root. 

“There needs to be a change politics-wise,” said David Figueroa, a Tucson community member who attended the official memorial for the two victims Wednesday, Sept. 2, at Catalina Park. He added that politicians perpetuate division in the community through partisan stances against the LGBTQ+ community, particularly during election seasons. “(They’re) just fear-mongering, and it creates a lot of hatred against the community for no reason.”

A 2024 FBI report found that while overall violent crime is down nationally, hate crimes against the LGBTQ+ community remain high. In Arizona, the Department of Public Safety recorded a 19% increase in hate crimes from 2024 to 2025. Of those, 11% of recorded crimes were motivated by a sexual orientation bias and nearly 4% by a gender identity bias.

“There’s too much hate,” said Brandon Lee, a friend of Capara whom LOOKOUT spoke to previously. “There’s an ideology out there that believes that you can hate people into change, and if you don’t stop them from loving each other, they’re going to destroy our country. What kind of country is that?”

"We don’t want to take away anyone’s guns, we just want more guardrails in place for them so that we don’t have to go through these horrible things that come up."
-Arizona state Rep. Betty Villegas, D-Tucson

Arizona state Rep. Betty Villegas, a Democrat who represents the legislative district where the shooting occurred and is up for reelection, said the state Legislature’s deep-rooted political divides are to blame for a lack of progress on bills related to hate crimes and gun reform.

“We are in a political climate where it’s not accepted,” Villegas said, adding that the Legislature is divided on how to address discrimination against the state’s LGBTQ+ community. “We have a lot of things that we can agree on, but when it comes to gay rights, transgender rights, civil rights, DEI rights … It’s totally divided.”

She added that even smaller things that shouldn’t be politically charged — like introducing a bill that would create an LGBTQ+ license plate and support scholarships for queer and trans students, regardless of immigration status — have become a sticking point in a Legislature with a Republican majority. The bill was heard twice before it died in committee.

Republicans have been able to move pro-gun bills through the Legislature, though many have been vetoed by Democratic Gov. Katie Hobbs. They’ve also been able to move an anti-trans initiative to this year’s ballot by circumventing the governor’s veto. At the same time, they’ve made it harder for bills offering protections to marginalized communities to make progress through the legislative process by not assigning proposals to be heard by the public in committee hearings.

In 2024, Villegas, along with Rep. Alma Hernandez — who also represents LD 20 — and other Democrats, introduced legislation that would make hate crimes a felony. The bill was read twice but died in committee.

“We have to get (Republicans) out of the majority or we’re going to continue with this hatred, the gun laws that they refuse to pass — we don’t want to take away anyone’s guns, we just want more guardrails in place for them so that we don’t have to go through these horrible things that come up,” Villegas said.

Legislation alone couldn’t have prevented what happened at Venture-N, but proponents of a hate crime law say it can create laws to ensure that victims of hate- and gun-related crimes can receive justice in the future.

Villegas affirmed that the Democratic Caucus will be looking at bills that will protect not just the queer community but other marginalized communities in the next session.

“This just really prioritizes it for me, and I know that our leadership is already looking at it,” she said, adding that it will take bringing together all the stakeholders: the community, businesses and leadership.

But she also stressed the importance of flipping the House in the upcoming election so that Democrats might actually have a chance to pass legislation instead of being set back by the Republican majority.

Since the shooting was identified as a hate-related incident by TPD, community members have been left asking themselves what they want to see moving forward.

Some want communal change.

“I’m not asking for this to get fixed at the snap of a finger, but I am asking for there to be a solution,” said Lupita Zepeda, owner of Yolia Botanica, a queer-owned spiritual shop in Tucson. “I think the solution is continuing our unity and continuing our solidarity and our commitment to each other, and to keep each other safe.”

Others, like Lee, want institutional change.

“You can’t get accountability from a corpse,” he said. “LGBTQIA+ and any other minority, let alone shooting victims, shouldn’t be burying our dead at our own expense, on our families, mothers, fathers, spouses, children. We shouldn’t be alone when policy can spare us from this.”

David Black, a criminal defense attorney in Phoenix, said that despite the inability to bring charges against Ceesay because of his death, there is significance to labeling crimes as hate crimes.

“(Hate crime statistics) are important so that when the Legislature makes these laws and our Legislature writes these laws, that people are armed with the numbers and are able to say, hey, this is a big problem, it needs to be taken seriously and it needs to be dealt with,” he said.

There is no standalone hate crime law in Arizona. Prosecutors can add sentencing enhancements to increase penalties for existing crimes motivated by bias, but that is decided by a judge after someone is found guilty of a crime.

But even in cases where the shooter lives and gets prosecuted for committing a crime, getting the hate crime enhancement is an uphill battle, as was the case for the families of Bernardo Pantaleon and Osvaldo Hernandez Castillo, two gay Phoenix men who were killed just eight months apart.

Their families fought for prosecutors to add a hate crime enhancement, but ultimately Manuel Carrasco Calderon — one of the perpetrators in the case — was sentenced to three and a half years in prison followed by four years of supervised probation, according to the Maricopa County Attorney’s Office.

It was a case that proved to civil rights advocates how accountability, especially when it comes to crimes against the LGBTQ+ community, needs to be explicitly codified, prosecuted and enforced for a sense of justice to be served. They said it is an acknowledgment that the crime was motivated by bias and that people who commit those crimes are not immune to being prosecuted explicitly for their hate.

“Justice is us continuing the discussion, continuing to talk about what we need to prevent this,” Villegas said. “We need prevention. And don’t let it just be another ‘Oh, that’s a horrible thing that happened,’ and move on to the next one. We can’t do that anymore.”

At the Wednesday memorial, which attracted more than 1,000 people, Mayor Regina Romero emphasized the importance of honoring the lives of Capara and Siqueiros with actions beyond words.

They’ve Been Where Tucson Is Now. Here’s What They Want You to Know.

Survivors of Club Q in Colorado Springs say Tucson’s LGBTQ+ community can draw on lessons from the years of grief, solidarity and division that followed their own tragedy.

LOOKOUTAlec Berg (he/him)

“Anti-LGBTQ violence is cultivated by anti-LGBTQ rhetoric, policies, religions, loss and executive orders,” she said. “That is why it is important to me to show up, to advocate, to lead on policies that protect and uplift our LGBTQ+ communities, history and our future.”

At the national level, Congresswoman Adelita Grijalva once again addressed the tragedy and called for Congress to act.

“Our communities are sick and tired of hearing our ‘thoughts and prayers,’” she said. “We should be acting today to pass commonsense gun safety laws and to combat hate and violence targeting LGBTQ+ folks.”

The deaths of Capara and Siqueiros have elicited responses from political leaders on both sides of the aisle at the local, state and national levels. It’s galvanized Democratic candidates to call for action and reform that partisan lines have limited.

But it will only be after the midterm elections, once the makeup of the Arizona Legislature and U.S. Congress is decided, that we will see whether legislation that protects marginalized communities will progress or continue to face setbacks.

“We will do all we can to make sure that their deaths were not in vain,” Villegas said. “We will try to find the solutions that we need so that this doesn’t have to happen again to another family.”