9 FEBRUARY 16-22, 2023 westword.com WESTWORD | CONTENTS | LETTERS | NEWS | NIGHT+DAY | CULTURE | CAFE | MUSIC | A week after Denver’s tattoo shop shootings on December 27, 2021, Z Williams was scroll- ing through Twitter while sitting in Hope Tank, a socially conscious gift shop right by Sol Tribe, where two people had died in the killing spree; the shop had become a hub for community support. “I saw this pop-up that said, ‘If you want to donate to the victims of the Sol Tribe shooting, the only reliable place that you can do that that’s transparent and valid, that’s better than the GoFundMes, is giving to the Colorado Healing Fund,’” Williams recalls. Williams, a founder of Bread and Roses Legal Center, wondered who was behind the Colorado Healing Fund and whether the organization had reached out to anyone in the community affected by the tragedy. After asking around, Williams determined that CHF had done no such outreach. Instead, it was responding through a third- party agency, the Colorado Organization for Victim Assistance, which often works with po- lice departments to respond to mass tragedies. “We want to respect victim confi dentiality and privacy, so we try to work within a single point- of-contact system where their advocates are the victims’ families and those immediately impacted’s best point of contact,” explains Jordan Finegan, CHF executive director. “In my mind, especially with that kind of event, it’s very important to make sure that if you’re fundraising for anyone, that you have a connection to the community, and a tie, and you have their permission to do that,” responds Williams, who’d started rallying support right after the tattoo tragedy. Eleven months later, as reports of the Club Q shooting started coming in early on November 20, Williams knew there was no time to waste. “As a member of the queer community, as someone who has friends and people that I have deep love for in Colorado Springs, as someone who’s been through — not the exact same, because no two events are the same — the aftermath of one of these tragedies, I just knew that there are going to be a lot of unmet needs, and that the institutions are not designed to keep communities like the queer community safe or resourced,” Williams says. Working through Bread and Roses, Wil- liams looked for ways continued on page 10 GETT Y IMAGES/WESTWORD PHOTO ILLUSTRATION
