Gay Huffington Post Contributor Arrested for Making Threats Against LGBTQ Nightclub

Atlanta police have arrested a suspect who is alleged to have made terroristic threats against local gay nightclub The Heretic. That man is Chase Staub, who was a contributor for Huffington Post.

Staub was brought to the attention of police posting a “threatening social media post,” in which he wielded a pepper spray gun, reports Fox News. He was apprehended at his home, and “faces charges of terroristic threats and acts and disorderly conduct.”

Those posts show Staub’s bedroom, in which he is pointing a gun at his bed, posing in a mirror that appears to have writing on it reading “I will judge.” The videos circulated around Atlanta’s gay community prior to the club’s call to police. Employees at the club told police that “they observed threatening remarks made towards their establishment on social media.”

Staub posted a series of videos, including ones where he had multi-colored post-its laid out with writing on them, saying “Don’t give me something to shoot about,” and noting that Georgia is an open-carry state.

In another video, Staub shares a text message he apparently received, saying “People are calling us saying you bought a gun and are showing it online and they are fearing for their lives. What’s going on? They are getting ready to call police. They are saying you are threatening to kill them. Answer.”

After initial reports of a threat to The Heretic, which followed quickly after a shooting that claimed the lives of 5 people at Club Q in Colorado Springs, many assumed the worst, believing that The Heretic had been targeted because it was an LGBTQ nightclub. No motive has been established for the Club Q shooting, and the suspect’s lawyers have said that the suspect identifies as “non-binary.”

Many posted their concerns that the club was targeted for anti-LGBTQ sentiment. These include “Self-identified historian Thomas Lecaque/@tlecaque
called for immediate censorship against rhetoric he dislikes in reaction to the arrest of a gay leftist man who allegedly made terroristic threats against a gay club in Atlanta,” Andy Ngo reported.

“This is not an accident,” Lecaque wrote, “the rhetoric that pushed the Club Q shooting has been amped up even more since that terrorist attach (it was an act of stochastic terrorism), with the goal of pushing more such attacks. Something has to be done to shut down the rhetoric immediately.”

Another who reacted similarly to initial reports was Zack Ford, who Ngo reports is “press secretary for @AFJustice, said groomer/pedophile rhetoric needed to be removed in reaction to arrest of a gay leftist charged w/making terroristic threats against a gay club. Incident follows CO gay club shooting by transnonbinary suspect.”

“I don’t know how else to say that until we significantly drum out all the horrid groomer/pedophile rhetoric demonizing LGBTQ people, this violence is only going to continue against us,” Ford wrote. “Please, for the love of God, call it out for the hate that it is.”

A motive for the threats allegedly made by Staub on social media is not yet known.

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