Police ID Pawtucket Ice Rink Shooter as Transgender Father of Three Who Went by 'Roberta'

We're learning more about the man police say shot up a Pawtucket, Rhode Island, icing skating rink during a high school hockey game on Monday afternoon, and it seems to be the latest in a disturbing trend of mass shootings being committed by transgender individuals. Three people, including the shooter, have died, and three more are hospitalized.

At a Monday evening press conference, Pawtucket Police Chief Tina Goncalves identified the suspect as 56-year-old Robert Dorgan, who also went by the name "Roberta Esposito." The violence, now being called a murder-suicide, seems to have stemmed from a family dispute and Dorgan's confused gender identity may have played a role in the tensions.

Local media is reporting that Robert Dorgan went to the North Providence Police Department in early 2020 to lodge a complaint against his father-in-law. According to Dorgan, he had recently undergone gender-reassignment surgery and his father-in-law wanted him to move out of the family house because of it.

Dorgan, who said he had lived at the home for seven years, told police that the father-in-law told him, “there’s no goddam [sic] way a tranny is going to stay in my house.”

Around the same time as this incident, Dorgan's then-wife Rhonda filed for divorce, initially citing "gender reassignment surgery, narcissistic + personality disorder traits" as the reasons behind the split. She eventually crossed that out, replacing it with “irreconcilable differences which have caused the immediate breakdown of the marriage.” Rhonda Dorgan was on the one people shot and killed Monday.

New: Canadian Mass Shooter Identified As Transgender, Authorities Rush to Not 'Misgender'

Court record show that the divorce was finalized in June of 2021; Robert Dorgan reportedly moved to Jacksonville, Florida, following the divorce and was working as a truck driver.

🚨 UPDATE: A source with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives (ATF) told Fox News that the shooting stemmed from a domestic violence incident and turned into a murder-suicide.

The source said the gunman killed his wife and shot two of his kids before turning… https://t.co/LorYSjt8EO
— Breaking911 (@Breaking911) February 16, 2026

Police Chief Goncalves revealed that her department had interviewed over 100 witnesses as part of its investigation into the shooting. It is believed that Rhonda Dorgan was gunned down and killed alongside one of her adult children; Robert Dorgan apparently turned the gun on himself.

"It appears that this was a targeted event, that it may be a family dispute," Goncalves said. "We cannot release the names of the victims because obviously, we want to speak to the family, make sure the family is well aware of what happened before we release that information publicly."

As RedState's Bog Hoge reported earlier Monday, the shooting took place at Pawtucket's Dennis M. Lynch Arena. We have since learned that the violence began around 2:30 p.m. during a Senior Night high school matchup, possibly between the Coventry–Johnston co-op team and the Blackstone Valley (BVS) co-op team; one of the Dorgan children was allegedly on the ice at the time of the shooting and is not believed to have been injured.

One local reporter, NBC 10's Dan Jaehnig, cited a law enforcement source as saying the suspect may have been dressed in women's clothing when he intentionally targeted his family members who were at the hockey match.

BREAKING: The suspect in the Rhode Island shooting has indeed been confirmed as a man who went through gender reassignment surgery-- which his ex-wife cited in their divorce papers along with "narcissistic+personality disorder traits."

His ex-Father in Law was also arrested a… pic.twitter.com/HfCaUdwFnU
— Greg Price (@greg_price11) February 17, 2026

An X account that is possibly linked to the suspect was still up Monday evening and showed the user – and, again, it's not confirmed to be Robert Dorgan – telling actor Kevin Sorbo to "keep bashing us. but do not wonder why we Go BERSERK" in response to a post Sorbo made about a transgender Member of Congress.

Just last week, a transgender 18-year-old slaughtered seven students and one teacher at Tumbler Ridge Secondary School in the British Columbia province of Canada.