As the late, great Paul Harvey used to say, it's not one world.
On Monday, Ousman Ceesay approached two men outside a Tucson gay bar and opened fire, killing both men. Ceesay later turned the gun on himself, and died while in the hospital. The incident is now being classified as a hate crime after police searched Ceesay's home and found notes including anti-LGBTQ+ statements.
But that's not all that was revealing about Ceesay's background.
The suspect, 44-year-old Ousman Ceesay, was new to the Tucson area and did not know the victims, the Tucson Police Department said in a news release Tuesday night.
While searching his home, detectives found a note that “indicated he acted alone and that this shooting was a targeted attack motivated by hate toward the LGBTQIA+ community,” the department said.
Vincent Anthony Siqueiros, 42, and Cameron Davis Capara, 33, were in the parking lot of the Venture-N bar around 12:30 a.m. Monday when they were confronted and then shot by Ceesay, police said. Ceesay then shot himself with a 9mm handgun and never tried to enter the bar, police said.
Both Siqueiros and Capara died at the scene, and Ceesay was pronounced dead at a nearby hospital. Police said Ceesay was carrying a note with a list of other LGBTQIA+-associated businesses in the region.
There's no indication that Ceesay was in the United States illegally, but his background does lend some clues.
Ceesay’s cousin, Muhammad Sylva, told the Arizona Daily Star that he and Ceesay grew up together in the West African country of The Gambia, where homosexuality is illegal. Ceesay immigrated to the United States in 2010, got a student visa to attend college, and married a woman from Oklahoma.
Sylva also said Ceesay was a practicing Muslim and that his faith was not “extreme.” They never had any conversations about homosexuality or LGBT issues because it is stigmatized in their home country, according to Sylva.
Now, it appears that Ceesay entered the United States legally under a student visa in 2010, although his current status is not clear. 16 years is a long time to be a student; it's not known if his visa was amended, changed, or expired. But what's clear is that the protestations of his cousin aside, Ceesay certainly did harbor some extreme views about homosexuals, enough so that he decided to launch this attack.
A man whose faith is "not extreme" doesn't leave a note indicating his attack was motivated by hate towards the LGBTQ+ community.
There's a cautionary tale in all this: Not all societies, not all cultures, are created equal. There's no reason the United States should not take that into account in our immigration policy. Admitting someone from a place like The Gambia presents the risk of precisely what happened in Tucson on Monday; this Ousman Ceesay was here for over 15 years, and clearly has not assimilated the great American values, like, well, not murdering gay people. But he entered the United States during the Obama administration and was still here and, it sure seems apparent now, still clung to much of the value system of his homeland. Now two people are dead, and Ceesay's last communication reveals that his early inculcation in hate sure seems to be the reason why.
One of the victims, Cameron Davis Capara, was reported to have been involved with Antifa, although there's no indication that being why he was targeted, or that his association has anything to do with this case.