Texas Man Fires Gun at Relative Who Came Out as Gay
The victim in the incident claims that Donnell Jetters reacted to his coming out by firing a pistol at him.
Donnell Jetters, of Waco, Texas, was arrested after he fired a gun at a relative who came out as gay.
On March 14, around 9 p.m., police officers were dispatched to a home in the North Lake Waco section of the city in response to a report of a disturbance involving a gun.
The victim in the case called 9-1-1 after escaping from the home but returned to the scene shortly after officers arrived. Investigators discovered that Jetters and the victim, who was a family member, had gotten into an argument after the latter came out as gay.
The family member told police they left the residence after hearing Jetters cocking a pistol. They claimed he later pointed the weapon at them while they were fleeing, according to an arrest warrant affidavit.
According to KWTX, officers located a bullet hole from a round that struck the trunk of the relative’s car.
Police claimed in the affidavit that the round “would have struck the victim if the round had not been stopped by the metal between the trunk and the driver’s side seat.”
Police also uncovered a shell casing in front of the residence, and a Taurus 9-millimeter pistol inside the home.
The affidavit claims that the 47-year-old Jetters admitted to shooting the pistol but claimed to have fired a single shot into the air as his family member was fleeing.
Jetters has since made bond and was released from jail.
According to the 2017 National Crime Victimization Survey, LGBTQ individuals are more than twice as likely to be targeted for violence by firearms than their cisgender and straight counterparts.
A similar analysis — based on data from the 2022 and 2023 National Crime Victimization Survey — found that LGBTQ people are five times more likely than their cisgender or straight counterparts to be victims of violent crime, according to the Williams Institute, an LGBTQ-focused think tank at the UCLA School of Law.
Additionally, a state-by-state analysis released earlier this year by The Trevor Project, a national LGBTQ youth suicide prevention and crisis intervention organization, found that 23% of Texans aged 13 to 24 reported being physically intimidated or harmed based on their LGBTQ identity in the past year.
That same survey found that 77% of LGBTQ Texan respondents said they experienced “low to moderate” support from their families after coming out.
The violence, harassment, and negativity that some LGBTQ youth receive in their daily personal interactions is so harsh that it can lead to depression and feelings of isolation, as well as self-harm and suicidal ideation. A Trevor Project survey last year found that nearly 1 in 3 LGBTQ youth believe that they will not live past the age of 35.
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