A NORTH Cumbrian LGBTQ+ charity has reacted to the news of a devastating shooting that saw the deaths of several people.

A father and a drag performer managed to subdue the killer who opened fire at an LGBTQ+ nightclub in the US state of Colorado.

The attacker killed five people and left 17 others with injuries at Club Q in Colorado Springs on the night of Saturday, November 19.

Police officers are investigating whether or not the shooting was a hate crime and if the shooter acted alone.

The deadly shooting happened on the day before the Transgender Day of Remembrance.

The suspect is facing five murder charges and five charges of committing a bias-motivated crime causing bodily injury, according to US media.

Club Q has been described as the heart of the LGBTQ+ community in Colorado Springs.

Reacting to the news, a spokesperson from Pride in North Cumbria, a charity for LGBTQ+ young people in the area, said in a statement: “The shooting at Club Q, a nightclub that should have been a safe place for queer people to spend their evening, shows significantly how persecuted queer people are in the current age.

“It’s easy to think as a straight or cisgender person that because people are no longer legally persecuted for their sexual orientation, that there are no salient issues of deep-rooted discrimination against us ingrained culturally.

“This is far from the case, as, on the eve of Transgender Remembrance Day, a twisted person unloaded terror upon an innocent group of people attempting to enjoy a night out in the safety of their town, in a country where this sort of thing sadly happens far too often.

“It is incidents like these that resonate with the global LGBTQ+ community as a reminder that we are persecuted, and there are miles to travel in terms of true equality.”

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