Man pleads guilty to hate crime in fire outside Seattle gay bar
ebar.comTwenty-seven months after he set fire to a dumpster behind a Seattle gay bar, Kalvinn Garcia has pleaded guilty to one count of committing a federal hate crime.
According to a news release issued May 26 by the United States Department of Justice, on February 24, 2020, Garcia, 25, of Sedro Woolley, Washington, set fire to the contents of a dumpster behind Queer/Bar, a popular club in Capitol Hill, Seattle's LGBTQ neighborhood.
Garcia was arrested only minutes after setting the blaze, telling police "that he set the fire and that he targeted Queer/Bar because it angered him to see a sign that said 'queer,'" according to the release. "I think it's wrong that we have a bunch of queers in our society," he added, according to the release.
A few weeks later, the DOJ reported, "Garcia told a stranger that his intent in setting the fire was to trap and hurt the people inside."This was not Garcia's first encounter with the law.
