The Boise Shooting – Gileriodekel

My Thoughts and Feelings

The Background and Situation

Jacob Bergquist was a white supremacist / convicted felon who moved to Boise because Idaho has more lax gun control laws. While he was here he was known for talking about firearms (especially how he believed felons should be legally allowed to own them), conservative politics, harassi ng police, and causing disturbances in the community by harassing businesses for not letting him open carry in their stores. He also really enjoyed illegal firearm target practicing, and did so as recently as October 21st.

On October 25th he went to the Boise mall and shot and killed Roberto Padilla Arguelles (a Hispanic man) and Jo Acker (a transgender woman and returned veteran). This murderer lived less than 3 miles from me. The shooting took place less than 3 miles from my house, which is less than a mile and a half from my current job. I used to work at that mall.

I am an openly bisexual transgender woman. Last year during election season, even though I wasn’t out as trans yet, I was so scared of being targeted by an extremist that I exclusively wore gray clothes and only went out when I HAD to – I wanted to blend in and not be noticed. Now someone from the queer community is dead because of an extremist. Its the exact fear I had in 2020. I am not being hyperbolic when I say that I do not feel safe in my own community.

Moving Forward

For a long time many of us have believed that Boise is a nice, safe place which somehow found the magic ingredient to be immune from bigger city problems. Well, those days are gone. Boise has seen refugee children get senselessly stabbed to death at their own birthday parties. Boise elected Ryan Davidson as county commissioner, a man who attended a nazi rally in 2020 (he is in the red shirt behind the nazi with the vest). Boise has right-wing extremists asking questions like “When do we get to use the guns? That’s not a joke. … How many elections are they going to steal before we kill these people?” in broad daylight and are met with applause. Now Boise has seen people of color and queer folks killed by an extremist at the shopping mall. I was fortunate enough not to be at the mall on the 25th, but next time it may be at a bar, grocery store, school, or church.

Unfortunately Boise is a beacon for these violent folks. Local police didn’t arrest this murderer for illegally being in possession of a firearm and harassing businesses and government agencies multiple times. The reason that he was permitted to own a gun even though he was a convicted felon is because Idaho Code Section 18-310(2) doesn’t list his felony theft conviction as a reason to remove his ability to own guns in Idaho. In his own words he publicly talked about how Idaho’s gun control laws are ideal for him because the state’s gun control laws supersede the federal ones. Idaho so strongly believes in it’s current gun control laws that this soon-to-be mass shooter faced no repercussions for walking into the capitol armed with a semi-automatic handgun and asking to speak to the governor. Despite the real danger that even they faced, we can’t count on politicians changing those laws to prevent this from happening again, because they are the ones who have created and enabled this climate which will continue to attract and embolden violent extremists. Our own Lieutenant Governor has been known to brandish guns in her political statements. On top of that, it took over 24 hours for police to release the name of the murderer. During this time they expended a lot of effort to scrub the internet of his social media presence. Scrubbing his content allows less-than-true narratives to emerge; my guess is folks will blame mental health or simply say “we’ll never know his motives”, like with the Las Vegas shooting. At this point KTVB is only saying “Boise PD was alerted about his concerning beliefs and behavior”, which is a dishonest way of reporting that he was a racist extremist. Luckily, some sleuths like myself were able to find and archive some stuff before it got scrubbed. These things clearly show how he was a far-right-wing white supremacist who had a deep hatred for minorities, was a convicted felon who unlawfully and aggressively owned guns, and was a known danger to the community yet government officials did nothing. These behaviors from our governmental institutions send a strong message that right-wing extremism is not only welcomed and even protected here, but if it gets out of hand they will try to delete all of the public warning signs in an effort to whitewash your history and protect the right-wing political narrative.

I have seen friends dive head first into political actions to try and actualize systemic changes, but of course Idaho keeps descending further and further into right-wing extremism. I have seen friends dedicate their entire lives to fighting cultural extremist hate to make Idaho a better place, only to watch them get so burned out and disillusioned that they move out of the state or even the country. Idaho and America as a whole refuses to take proactive action to point out and eliminate right-wing extremism. Idaho and America as a whole refuses to, as the 2nd Amendment calls for, regulate its militia, and all of these shootings are the deadly consequences of that lack of gun control. Jo Acker was a returned combat veteran, and instead of dying in combat she died from an attack right here in Boise. I have had queer friends tell me that it is time to arm up and be ready to shoot an extremist if the time comes, but I am a pacifist so that is not an option for me.

The Options

I feel so backed into a corner with all of this, and the way I see it is there are only 3 options:

Continue living life as normal with the understanding that as a queer person I am significantly more likely to be murdered.
Try to hide my queerness as best as I can and not go in public spaces to mitigate my chances of being targeted and murdered.
Move to another state / country where the chances of me being murdered in general are significantly lower.

For a long time, I believed that #2 was the only option for me, but I can’t stay in the closet. Unfortunately #1 is my only option until #3 is a possibility or necessity for me. I just pray that I and all of my family and friends stay safe if we take option #1.

I feel so helpless. I feel so vulnerable. I feel so hopeless. I wish the leaders of my community, state, and nation would take real action to help me feel safe in my own hometown.

Relevant links on the topic

Each section is presented in chronological order

Archived images and videos

Original racist YouTube channel description

Screenshot of redirective channel description

Rebooted channel description

“GUNS N RODENTS IS HARD ON POLICE?? – JACOB BERGQUIST V BOISE PD” is a now-deleted video which was recorded at the Idaho capitol and likely uploaded on April 8th, 2021. It was originally hosted here, was posted here, and screenshots/thumbnails can be found here and here.

My Thoughts and Feelings

The Background and Situation

Moving Forward

The Options

Relevant links on the topic

Archived images and videos

Reddit Conversations from local subs

News Articles

KTVB

Idaho Statesman

KBOI

Idaho Press

Other