2 Killed in Shooting in Rhode Island

By Ignacio Zamorano
News Editor

Gunfire erupted at a hockey rink in Pawtucket, Rhode Island on Monday February 16th as two local high schools faced off in a hockey game as part of senior night celebrations; 3 people died, among them the gunperson, their ex-wife, and one of their six children. The shooter was identified by local police as Robert Dorgan, born in 1969, although Chief Tina Goncalves of the Pawtucket Police Department also mentioned that the shooter most recently went by the name Roberta Esposito, without providing further explanation. There are unconfirmed reports that the shooter’s motive stems from a family dispute.

Dorgan’s mental state has been scrutinized with one of their daughters describing them as “sick”, in comments to the New York Post. Dorgan’s murdered wife had divorced the shooter in 2020, with the divorce filing stating that “gender reassignment surgery, narcissistic + personality disorder traits” were the reasons she provided for the split after more than 30 years of marriage.

A day before the shooting, under the name Roberta Dorgano, Dorgan responded to anti-transgender posts by actor Kevin Sorbo and Infowars conspiracy theorist Alex Jones on Twitter by saying that constant criticism of transgender people is “why we Go BERSERK.”

However, the shooter also seemed to be a political extremist, carrying a large Nazi “SS” tattoo on their bicep. Dorgan’s Twitter presence also suggests that the shooter held far-right political allegiances. Dorgan’s account spoke often of the shooter’s fandom of American political streamer Nick Fuentes, a major figure on the far-right, and just often antisemitic; it also had hundreds of posts peddling conspiracies about the recently released Epstein files. The Rhode Island shooter is yet another example of recent shootings being propelled by psychiatric crises, which tend to manifest themselves in individuals who have undergone online radicalization.